LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS 



BY 

URSULA N. GESTEFELD 



"TxR^ OP CO,v 






NEW YORK 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS TO 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 



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Copyright, i8gi, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. 



All Rights Reserved. 



INTRODUCTION. 

True individualism tends to the truest universalism. 
Ordinary personalism tends to exclusiveness in favor 
of the one concerned. In the former position one 
sees that the inevitable sequence of cause and effect 
which is bearing him along with it to the fulfilling 
of his destiny, is bearing all mankind to the same end 
as well. In the other, one believes himself to be 
approaching a desired consummation which is impos- 
sible for others. 

The latter view tends to separation in thought, 
purpose and action ; the former, to unity of these, mak- 
ing of mankind a veritable brotherhood, each member 
of which finds and holds his own place. He recognizes 
his relation to his brethren the while, holds his 
own views consequent upon his individual view of 
that which is abstract for all, yet knows that the 
individual views of others are the necessity for them, 
as are his for him, and that all, as one body, are march- 
ing along the King's highway, the royal road to self- 
knowledge. 

In this last decade of the nineteenth century uni- 
versalism is overcoming sectarianism, and mankind 
as a whole, is being lifted higher in consequence, and 
this, not through increase of church membership, but 



8 INTRODUCTION, 

through recognition of universal principles and their 
IS universal application which is drawing all races 
into a unity of thought. This recognition and appli- 
cation is drawing them as inhabitants of a thought- 
world in which the old barriers have no place, and 
where men and women meet as equals, clasp hands 
and look fearlessly into each other's eyes, because of 
that unity which can have its origin and sustenance 
only in such a world. 

In this uiiiversalism, which is consequent upon 
true individualism, men and women can be fearless, 
honest and free. In sectarianism they can not. Hence 
the thought- world, which receives its vivifying influx 
from the above, must lie outside of those bound- 
aries ; while the continual leavening which sectarian- 
ism receives from that world is fast disssolving it to 
its final disappearance. 

The question to-day, is not " What church do you 
belong to ? " but "Where is your level in the thought- 
world ? " And because mind, not creed, " is the meas- 
ure of the man." So the true teacher of or minister 
unto the people is he who offers them the fruits of 
that world in which he dwells, instead of handing on 
the " traditions of the elders." 

Yet this is heresy. And heresy is something to be 
shunned, say we? Nay; rather something to be 
welcomed and crowned as a victor, for it is the con- 
queror which has brought in its train all the progress 
mankind has known. 

A heretic is a redeemer. A part of the world's 
work has been done by these from the least to the 



INTRODUCTION, 9 

greatest, and by these only will it be finished. So 
as a helper in that work which alone has or will up- 
lift humanity, " I confess unto thee, that after the 
way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of 
my fathers." 



A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 



" The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried 
me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in 
the midst of the valley which was full of bones. And 
caused' me pass by them round about : and, behold, 
there were very many in the open valley ; and, lo, 
they were very dry. And he said unto me. Prophesy 
upon those bones, and say unto them, O ye dry 
bones, hear the word of the Lord .... So I prophesied 
as I was commanded : and as I prophesied, there was 
a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came 
together, bone to his bone .... Then said he unto 
me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy. Son of man, 
and say to the wind, Thus said the Lord God ; 
Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe 
upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied 
as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, 
and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an 
exceeding great army." — Ezekiel, xxxvii. 



12 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRES- 
SION. 

ROMAJfS, V. 14-21. 

Nevertneless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over 
them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgres- 
sion, who is the figure of him that was to come. 

But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through 
the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and 
the gift by grace, lohick is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded 
imto many. 

And not as it ivas by one that sinned, so is the gift : for the judg- 
ment ivas by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many 
offences unto justification. 

For if by one man's offence death reigned by one ; much more 
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of right- 
eousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, as by the offence of one. judgment came upon all men 
to condemnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift 
came upon all men unto justification of life. 

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so 
by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But 
where sin abounded, grace did much more abound : 

That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign 
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. 

9 

In this chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans, he 
sharply contrasts the nature of one person with that 
of another, the Adam with the Jesus ; contrasts the 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TBAN8GBESSI0N. 13 

consequence of the nature of each, and points out 
that they are types of and for ourselves ; the one, the 
Adam unconsciously conformed to, the other to be 
conformed to consciously through recognition of its 
nature and office. 

His statements here would seem to substantiate 
the theological doctrine of original sin, in which we 
are all partakers, and its accompanying necessity of 
atonement ; that as we are partakers in the sin of 
the one man, we are equally partakers in the atone- 
ment of the other one if we choose so to be. 

This original sin or transgression of Adam has 
been held over us all, great and small, from our baby- 
hood up and over our fathers before us as something 
of which we are all guilty from the moment of our 
birth, because that one man did what he did so many 
centuries ago in the garden of Eden. 

It has been of no use for us to plead non-liability, 
innocence of all intent to sin, unconsciousness of the 
fact that we have sinned ; and equally useless to 
declare that we do not see how we are guilty because 
Adam did what he did any more than we are guilty 
of theft because some one else has stolen something. 

All our protest has availed nothing ; and we have 
been told that whether it seems right or not, we are 
guilty, and have incurred the wrath of God, the only 
escape from which is the atonement offered by Jesus 
Christ, which we must accept to be saved from that 
wrath ; and this acceptance must be prefaced by the 
acknowledgment that we are miserable sinners, 
whether we can see how we are so or not. 

Many have found it difficult to accept this doctrine 



14 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

as truth, and have been impelled by this consequence 
to seek for one that shall embody more of justice — 
shall, by its rationality, commend itself where this 
repels. There are those to-day who believe that they 
have found this better doctrine, one that explains 
why we are partakers in Adam's sin, that shows the 
nature and origin of this original sin, and follows on 
to the explanation of what atonement for it is, and 
why we are equally partakers in that. 

The doctrine which they offer in place of the old 
theological dogma, which is the backbone of all creeds, 
commends itself to the unprejudiced investigator in 
that it presents no gaps which have to be gotten over 
by faith, no interruptions in statement because of 
inability to give a reason. It presents, instead, an 
unbroken logical sequence which calls for no undue 
strain upon any one of our faculties at the expense of 
non-exercise of another. It meets and satisfies our 
whole nature instead of a part of it, and enables us 
to prove its truth through practical demonstration 
to-day instead of waiting till after we have died to 
find out whether it is true or not. 

The theological dogma of original sin is founded 
upon the record of Genesis as literal fact ; upon 
Adam's experience in the garden of Eden as something 
which transpired many centuries ago, and so a his- 
torical occurrence. The new doctrine is based upon 
the perception that this account is figurative, illus- 
trative of the experience which has been individual 
from all time, and which will continue so to be to the 
end of time ; and that because this is so we are all par- 
takers of Adam's sin in that all must have the experi- 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION. 15 

ence through which they find out what sin is and 
forsake it. 

Looking upon Adam as a type of mankind which 
is both individual and universal, we see that we are 
all Adams naturally. Looking upon Jesus as the 
type of mankind when it has progressed or grown to 
its highest possibilities, this type also both individual 
and universal, we see that we become what the Jesus 
typifies, as naturally. And in this process which 
begins with the Adam and ends with the Jesus is the 
redemption from sin through atonement, the sin 
originating with Ada ... 

We see how, by one man, death entered into our 
world, and how all men have so sinned because all 
are, individually, this one Adam. Then we see that 
we are not sinners because Adam did sin in the past 
but because we are Adams. 

The new interpretation makes this remote past our 
present. It shows this record of Genesis to mean 
this present day or present state of consciousness 
which we call living now. It removes all our specu- 
lation over what happened all these long years ago 
in the garden of Eden, all our wondering if that 
which is recorded did really happen, and shows us 
that the Adam state there typified is our present con- 
sciousness and its name is Adam. 

The confounding of the Adam of the second chap- 
ter of Genesis with the man of the first chapter is 
the mistake which underlies the old theological dogma. 
Discrimination between the two underlies the new 
interpretation. To follow the statement which shall 
make plain the nature of the Adam, the growth which 



16 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

brings the Jesus, the experience between the two, we 
must see at the outset that the man of the first chapter 
of Genesis is not a person but the ideal which person 
represents. 

The image of God is the ideal or idea of mind ; 
is individual identity itself. It is my individual 
identity and your individual identity. This image 
of God is back of and is represented by every person 
we see in the world, according to the degree of person 
which ranges from the first to the last, from the least 
to the greatest, from the Adam to the Jesus. 

This image of God, this ideal which is ever intact 
and perfect as such, is the imperishable, individual 
identity which remains ever the same, which is im- 
mortal in nature, which begins with God and ends 
with God, and which has in consequence neither 
beginning nor ending, God being the self-existent 
principle, the Primal Being which ever sustains it. 

It is untouched and unchanged by all that goes on 
upon the plane of persons which is below it. It is, 
by nature, forever one with that self-existent God 
which is One and Indivisible, but is differently defined 
by different peoples. It possesses all power over all 
less than it, consequently does over the representative 
person. It is over all and above all, eternal and un- 
changeable ; it is both the first and the last. 

But the Adam is not it. The Adam is only the first 
person who represents it; onli/ the first, by no means 
the last. He has his day, and comes to his end. The 
last person who represents the eternal individual 
identity is the Jesus who equally has His day and 
comes to his end because there is no more need for 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TBANSGBESSION. 17 

person. And between these two are many persons or 
personalities following each other in regular succes- 
sion like notes in the scale. 

Adam is the original sinner, and is the father of the 
human race, meaning by this term the race of persons ; 
or is its first parent only as the first or primal person 
from which comes all persons as a sequence. He is 
the father of the rest as the child is father of the man, 
as we say, and this whole sequence of persons or 
personalities, beginning with its first parent or Adam 
and ending with its ultimate or Jesus, simply makes 
visible, because it represents, the nature of the eternal, 
unchangeable, individual identity which, as the im- 
mortal ideal of mind, is the image of God, and one 
with the self-existent God, whatever that is, forever. 

Adam, the first person, the original sinner, simply 
makes visible the possible consequence of a degree, a 
part, of the nature of man, because of the limitations 
of that degree or part ; a consequence overcome by 
the rest of the nature. He is the visible person who 
embodies a state of consciousness which constitutes 
this person's soul ; this state being a degree or part 
of the nature of the individual identity. And back 
of this soul, this degree or part of its nature, is tnis 
identity itself, unchangeable, immortal, intact and 
perfect. 

This is illustrated by what we see as, and pronounce 
to be, an infant. What we see is the person. The 
soul of this infant person is a state of consciousness 
or infancy. This state as the soul, the visible infant 
as the body, together constitute the personality 
which has soul and body. Back of these and it is 

2 



18 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the individual identity which, eternal and unchange- 
able in itself, has its nature represented in a degree, 
and that the least, by this infant person, which, as 
the first or least, is its Adam. 

Sin originates with Adam because the Adam-soul 
is the first sinner. The individual identity which is 
the man of the first chapter of Genesis is not the 
sinner, hence does not fall and never can fall from 
what it is in itself, or from its high estate. It is above 
and beyond both the sinner and the sin. The first, 
or the sinner, is a state of consciousness, the second, 
or the sin, is its conclusion which is natural to itself, 
originating in itself and having no other existence ; 
hence coming to an end inevitably as the state comes 
to its own end through growth into a higher. 

The sins of a child are the mistaken conclusions of 
the child soul or state of consciousness. These will 
be atoned for through growth, and the manhood which 
is the product will not know them, for the manhood 
soul or state of consciousness will know better than 
the child soul possibly could, because it was the child 
soul. 

When we can see that the individual identity is 
the ideal, and therefore the real because spiritual 
man ; and that the nature of this one identity, and 
only real man, because the one ideal of the one mind, 
must be manifested or visible to make that ideal the 
actual or acting, we shall be able to see that this first 
person, Adam, and last person, Jesus, with all the 
persons between these, but make visible or are the 
visibility of . the process by which the nature of the 
individual identity is manifested. 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION. 19 

And the souls of all these persons are none of 
them the soul of the individual identity ; for that soul 
is its sustaining cause, God ; but they are the parts 
of its nature, and this is the thread upon which they 
are strung as beads, following each other in regular 
order and succession from least to greatest, each part 
having its visible representative or person. 

Then we shall see that the spiritual man, the in- 
dividual identity whose soul or substance is God, 
does not sin ; see that sin is but the mistake or wrong 
conclusion of a state of consciousness ; of that far 
less than this identity ; and that the sin or error origi- 
nates in this state, belongs to it only, has no exist- 
ence out of it, though its effects may be continuous in 
other states. 

This least part of the nature of man, with the possi- 
bility to it because of its limitations as the very least, 
is what is made visible by the Adam and the acts of 
the Adam who is the person at the beginning of the 
process which makes so much the nature of the in- 
dividual identity manifest ; and as such he is the first 
parent of all such persons who are so partakers in bis 
sin. 

In other words, we are all Adams as this present 
consciousness which, speaking and declaring itself, 
says " I." Back of this personal I or soul, these per- 
sonal " we's " ; back of every Adam is the one individ- 
ual identity which images God and is God-like in 
nature and in being. It is sinless, the Adam-soul is 
the sinner. And as the Adam-soul or state is com- 
mon to us all, we are all alike miserable sinners who 
must be redeemed from sin. 



20 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

And this redemption is for all according to the one 
law which is both individual and universal as the 
Adam is individual and universal. Through the ex- 
perience which begins with the Adam-soul, and 
which is my experience and your experience, the 
first sense of self and of all things is outgrown and 
passed beyond. This is redemption from sin, for it 
is this first or natural sense which prompts the sin 
or the erroneous conclusion. 

As it is outgrown, as a higher sense takes its place, 
the original sin is outgrown and a higher person is 
the redeemed from sin, this higher person represent- 
ing or embodying a liigher degree of the nature of man, 
which higher rules over the lower or lesser. But be- 
tween the original sin and the redemption from it is 
the atoning which brings the redemption. 

This atoning is the meeting and overcoming every 
consequence of the original sin, of the erroneous con- 
clusion consequent upon the first or natural and lim- 
ited sense of self and of all things; and through 
bringing into action a higher sense than it, one 
belonging to a larger degree of the nature of the in- 
dividual identity. 

The nature of Adam, of the Adam-soul or state of 
consciousness which causes it to make mistakes, and 
these natural, is clearly defined in the second chap- 
ter of Genesis. All things were brought to Adam 
" to see what he would call them." All things are 
brought to the little child who is just old enough to 
" take notice," in the same way and for the same 
reason. And with the little child whatever it calls 
that which it notices, the several things which meet 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION. 21 

its vision, so these are to it, though the child will not 
pronounce upon them truthfully, according to we 
older ones, who look on and know better than the 
child does or possibly can. 

It will call a cat a dog, and a dog a cat; and if it 
pronounce upon the dog as the cat, the dog will be a 
cat to it. So with the Adam—" and whatsoever he 
called every living thing, that was the name thereof." 
As the Adam state of consciousness or soul pro^ 
nounces upon all visible to it, so it is to that Adam- 
soul ; and this decision will be contrary to the truth of 
what it sees, naturally, because all that is the visible 
to the Adam is the representation of invisible things, 
is what we call the world. 

It will take the representative for the thing 
itself because the representative is all it can see, being 
all that is visible to that state of consciousness which 
Adam is. 

This mistake is natural and is the original sin. 
Included in it, inevitably, is the self seeing as well 
as the rest. As the visible person or body is one of 
the representatives, one of those so-called living 
things, it, as part of the visible, is seen because 
looked out upon by the Adam-soul or state, as all the 
visible is looked out upon ; and the natural mistake, 
the original sin, is taking it to be what it is not^ 

" This is man " the Adam-soul pronounces ; and 
as it is not man, sin or error has entered in to be 
put out again farther along when the child has grown 
old enough to know better. 

This original sin of the Adam of Genesis, of our 
first parent, is shared in by every one of us because 



22 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

this Adam is the type of ourselves and of what is 
natural to us. Yet he is the figure of him that is to 
come as the little child is the figure of the full-grown 
man who is to come, who will know far better than the 
child possibly could, and who will have those childish 
errors under his feet through his higher knowledge. 

So Adam is the figure of that Jesus who is to come 
as he is grown to, and by whom we are free from the 
law of sin and death which rules witli the Adam. 

The Adam sin or error is the boasted knowledge 
of to-day. The visible is all we can know anything 
about, it is said. Whether there is anything more 
than what is visible to us as the seen, it is impossi- 
ble to know, because we cannot know what we can- 
not see. We see mankind or person and we say, this 
is man. We see the world and we say, this is all the 
place we know of or can know, and we had better 
make the most of it. So we are Adams, all of us, 
living in the Adam-sense of things and declaring, 
'' This is all." Atonement is inevitable for every one 
of us, for it is the only way of redemption, and 
redemption from this sin or error must come. The 
never ceasing, eternal First Cause is working to 
that end. God works for us whether we know it or 
not. 

So long as we are satisfied with these Adam con- 
clusions, so long do we live in sin, and death is 
'* passed upon" us all; and death reigns from Adam 
to Moses. Or that condition which is living to the 
Adam-soul, with all that this includes, lasts as the 
all of living which ends in death, till the Moses or 
spiritual perception becomes the sense which pro- 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION. 23 

nounces for us and for which we listen instead of the 
Adam or mortal sense. 

It is through and by means of the Moses or spir- 
itual perception, when this is accepted as our de- 
liverer from the natural sense which, seeing the vis- 
ible or representative, believes it to be all, that we are 
led into the atoning for our original or natural sin ; 
and this is our going forth from the Egypt of sense- 
consciousness, the only real, to the Adam-soul and 
entering into the wilderness which lies between this 
Egypt and the promised land of a higher conscious- 
ness where we establish a redemption from sin ; and 
this through growth out of and away from the Adam- 
sense as the controlling sense, for it is that which 
makes the mistakes and these are the sins. It is 
natural sense of the natural man, the carnal mind 
which is at enmity with God or contrary to the 
truth of things. 

Spiritual perception crosses or contradicts natural 
or Adam-sense. That says, " The visible is the real." 
The other says, " No, it is not." That says, " The visi- 
ble is the all." The other says, "No, it is not." 
That says, " This visible person is man." The other, 
" No, it is not." That says, " every visible thing we 
see is a living thing." The other, " No, it is not. 
It only stands for the living thing which we cannot 
see." That says, "the living thing dies." The 
other, " No, it does not, for it cannot because of its 
nature. The visible representative which you see 
disappears when it is no longer needed. This is what 
you call death, but there is no death as you believe 
death to be." 



24 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Here is where our atonement for the sin of Adam 
begins, and with spiritual perception of the Moses 
who is our deliverer from it if he is followed ; for he 
sees and speaks the truth which is the word of the 
Lord, and which the Adam-sense can neither see nor 
hear. But our atonement is completed only in and 
with the redeemed one, which shall come after and 
according to the figure of Adam or as another person 
through this atoning process which produces him ; for 
redemption is only through atonement. 

This is the experience recorded as the journey of 
the children of Israel. Experience has to prove to us 
that the Adam is wrong and the Moses is right ; or that 
the natural sense, that which sees the visible and pro- 
nounces upon it as the real and the all, commits sin 
or forms erroneous conclusions which, to it, become 
law because these are what it believes ; and that the 
truth which conquers or overcomes the sin, the error, 
which kills this law, can do this work only through 
spiritual perception, for that is the sense which can 
see and hear the truth. 

Following on after the Moses into the wilderness, 
this leader furnishes us with proof after proof that we 
are on the way to redemption because we are in the 
way of atoning for the sin of Adam. And only 
through this experience, with its accompanying rev- 
elation, come those kings of whom is born that 
one which proves redemption from the original sin 
attained ; is born that redeemed one who is of the 
house of David, the king, and who is our example 
equally with Adam, this first parent being the type of 
what we are in this present state of consciousness, the 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION. 25 

Jesus or the redeemed one being the type of what we 
become when we change leaders ; change the Adam- 
sense, the natural sense, for spiritual perception. 

" For as by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many 
be made righteous." 

When we can see that this first parent Adam is not 
an historical personage, but is instead the type of 
what we are now ; that his sin is but the natural error 
which is ours now ; that the Eden from which it shuts 
him out is not a past locality now lost sight of, but is 
that recognition of our own harmonious being and 
nature as allied to that great whole of which person 
is a part, and consequently is that Eden which we 
must all find and enter, we shall not encounter the dif- 
ficulty which was ours with the old view when we 
could not see how we could possibly be responsible 
for what some one else did and of which we had no 
knowledge. 

With this ability to see meanings back of words, 
we shall discover that we are truly partakers of the 
Adam sin, of that which came by one man, and have 
the right to be equally partakers of the righteousness 
which comes by one man also. " Therefore as b}^ the 
offence of one, judgment came upon all men to con- 
demnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the 
free gift came upon all men iinto justification of life." 

If the Adam of Genesis is the figure of him that is 
to come, if the Jesus of the New Testament, the Sav- 
iour of mankind, is that one come, if these are the 
examples foi us by which we ma}'- see what we are 
and what we shall be as persons, the whole matter of 



26 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

original sin, atonement for it and redemption from it, 
stands outside of the theological dogma and upon a 
rational basis which removes it from the field of specu- 
lation occupied by that large body of people who can- 
not believe and accept ecclesiastical teachings. 

And so standing, it is capable of proof, for the appli- 
cation of the principle involved brings its own demon- 
stration. If the Adam, as the child knowing no better, 
thinks naturally that which is not true because of the 
promptings of the child or Adam-sense, it has com- 
mitted sin or error, and there was no sin till this Adam 
made it for itself. 

Experience belongs to Adam or the child, and it 
grows through it to see what it could not at first ; 
grows to see that it has made a mistake or committed 
sin. It sees this truth with a higher than its natural 
or child sense, and with this higher sees the way out 
of the consequences of its sin or error. As through 
its thinking the sin came, in the same way, through 
the same channel, must the righteousness come, and 
the last will displace and put out the first. 

Thinking with and according to spiritual percep- 
tion through set purpose instead of with and accord- 
ing to natural sense — the sense which first rules the 
world, and the easiest, by far, to use because the nat- 
ural — we bring forth the visible proof or demonstra- 
tions which prove that what we so think is true, for 
its truth is clearly and plainly manifested. So we 
overcome the results of the original sin, which are 
sickness, suffering, and death. We think them out 
of their existence in and to sense. 

Individual sin or error, atonement for it and redemp- 



SIMILITUDE OF ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION, 27 

tion from it and its many consequences, is proven to 
be, when this course is followed, not a religious belief 
merely, but a scientific fact, because it is proven knowl- 
edge. 

This view removes the Bible itself from both of 
these positions it has so long occupied, the adoration 
based upon the "traditions of the elders" equally 
with the skepticism which denies it any special value. 
It shows us this book as a text-book which has to 
be individually studied like any other text-book to 
find what it is and what it is meant to teach ; shows 
us that every one is to individually " search the Scrip- 
tures " instead of accepting the decisions of self-con- 
stituted authority as to their meaning. Shows us 
tliat we are to " prove all things," even the religious 
teachings which are sanctified by time, and " hold fast 
that which is good," letting go all which proves itself 
not so, however venerated may be the names and 
dates attached to these. 

Paul's statement, "death reigned from Adam to 
Moses even over them that had not sinned after 
the similitude of Adam's transgression," would seem 
to imply, to a superficial examination, that there were 
some who were exempt from Adam's sin ; but it refers 
to those who are not yet conscious of sin ; not yet 
aware of what sin is ; of the nature of the Adam or of 
the transgression. But these are bound by the law 
just the same ; the law that sin or error must be atoned 
for and redemption from it secured ; for this, being 
inevitable, applies equally to those who naturally err 
or to all Adams, whether they have yet found out that 
they have sinned or not, because every error brings 



28 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

its own consequences. And as " the wages of sin is 
death," it reigns over those who do not yet know 
its cause and meaning because they are partakers in 
the original sin. 

When we see that we are our own redeemers, that 
we can do that work day by day which atones for 
our former ignorance and its consequences, we shall, 
if we are wise, turn from the Adam to the Moses and 
follow that leader, because it is the deliverer from the 
consequences of the Adam sin. It can see the way 
through and out of these and bring us to that prom- 
ised land, promised from before the foundation of the 
world, where " sin hath no longer dominion over us." 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT, 29 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT ; OR, JOHN 
THE BAPTIST AND JESUS. 

Luke i. 5-17; 57-64. 

Theke was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain 
priest named Zaeharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife loas 
of the daugliters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 

And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the 
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 

And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren ; and 
they both were now well stricken in years. 

And it came to pass, that, while he executed the priest's office 
before God in the order of his course. 

According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn 
incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 

And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at 
the time of incense. 

And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on 
the right side of the altar of incense. 

And when Zaeharias saw Mm^ he was troubled, and fear fell upon 
him. 

But the angel said unto him. Fear not, Zaeharias : for thy prayer 
is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou 
shalt call his name John. 

And thou shalt have joy and gladness ; and many shall rejoice 
at his birth. 

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink 
neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the 
Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. 

And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord 
their God. 

And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to 



30 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient 
to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people prepared for 
the Lord. 



Now Elisabeth's full time came that she should be delivered; 
and she brought forth a son. 

And her neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had 
showed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her. 

And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circum- 
cise the child ; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of 
his father. 

And his mother answered and said, Not so ; but he shall be 
called John. 

And they said unto her. There is none of thy kindred that is 
called by this name. 

And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. 

And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying. His name 
is John. And they marvelled all. 

And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, 
and he spake, and praised God. 

In all ages of the world the letter and the spirit of 
truth : of Divine Law or the Law of God — that God 
which is Impersonal Principle and so does not act 
from and according to choice but from necessity 
according to the nature of that which is God — have 
been present therein together ; yet only in a degree 
according to the period in that process which this 
world represents. 

The truth of being has ever been in the world by 
its letter and by its spirit ; but only the perfect or 
full letter and its corresponding spirit are there when 
the John and the Jesus are there ; and these two are 
ever together. 

The record of John and of Jesus as this perfect 
letter and perfect spirit are given more completely 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 31 

in the Gospel according to Luke than in the others. 
It begins with the conception of both, and in the un- 
derstanding of these conceptions lies the revelation 
of the nature of the births therefrom. 

The more one studies this marvelous book, the 
Bible, the more one wonders at the infinite wisdom 
and self-evident truth concealed therein ; concealed 
from the natural sense but revealed to spiritual sense ; 
and only as we grow to think and see with this sense 
do its mighty revelations flash forth upon us till, like 
Paul, we are blinded by this light from heaven ; 
blinded to the former interpretations which were the 
product of mortal sense, the natural sense of the 
natural man, and so seeing them no more because 
illuminated from that above of this sense which is 
opened to us through spiritual perception. " What 
fellowship hath light with darkness ? " 

In the imagery of this wonderful book we find 
the perfect letter of God's manifestation, for which 
imagery historical events have been used so as to fit 
the method and perfectly carry out the plan of the 
book. 

To the eye and to the sense which can penetrate 
this letter is given the equally perfect spirit which is 
veiled by it ; and so the manifestation of God, which 
includes the manifestation of Man, is the result to 
the individual student of this Word of God, who 
seeks it with the only sense which can gain it. 

The corruption of the letter through reading this 
book with mortal sense is what has produced the 
various creeds, which, hardening into dogma, have 
not only not made the one and only true God mani- 



32 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

fest, but have prevented that manifestation to 
those who have accepted them as the truth which 
must be maintained at the expense of reason and 
justice. But because of that moving Law which 
operates through the world, Httle by little has come 
about a deeper penetration which touches and brings 
forth from the tomb of ecclesiasticism, as a veritable 
resurrection from the dead, a new, yet ever true and 
so old, meaning to this Word upon which all our 
creeds are founded ; and which is compelling a re- 
adjustment of them, a process whose beginning com- 
pelled, must inevitably go on to the beheading or 
extinguishing of the letter in the realization of the 
spirit of the Law. 

Those foreseeing this result, standing already upon 
its threshold, are members now of a new yet old 
church the invisible church, or the church of the 
Spirit ; are members of that one body ; a church whose 
membership is ever increasing and whose head is the 
universal living Christ instead of the crucified Jesus. 
It is ruled by that love which is inseparable from 
justice, instead of by fear and injustice ; it is built 
upon understanding instead of upon emotion, and 
so will stand forever. 

To see John the Baptist as the true letter, or the 
letter in accordance with abstract truth which can 
alone prepare the Avay for the Spirit of truth, is to see 
his nature as the forerunner of that which is to come ; 
is to see that this same conception and birth must 
take place in the world to-day as the preparation 
for the spirit which- follows. 

His father was a priest, and his mother was " of the 



TBE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 33 

daughters of Aaron," who, with his sons, was set 
apart as priests, " to minister unto the Lord in the 
priest's office." 

Here is shown that the letter of the law is in the 
keeping of the priesthood ; its members are its legiti- 
mate teachers ; it is their rightful office to minister 
unto the Lord by ministering unto the people to 
whom they can offer the letter which must, of itself, 
point the way to the spirit. 

Zacharias and Elisabeth " were both righteous 
before God, walking in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had 
no child because that Elisabeth was barren." 

The whole line of the priesthood is barren of the 
higher result because barren of the lesser. It does 
not yet present the spirit of the law because it does 
not yet have the true letter. Till it can produce 
this it cannot open the way for the first ; yet strict 
honesty of purpose, living up to, acting and teaching 
from the highest perception possessed is the way to 
get a higher. 

" They were both well stricken in years." 
Though years upon years has a narrow contracted 
presentation of the letter, one shrunken and shriveled, 
because the Love which is God has been left out of 
it, been the offering of the priests to the people till 
it seems as if the time had well-nigh gone by when a 
birth from them to and for those ministered unto by 
them were possible. 

The husk without the kernel has been offered to 
the people as divine truth ; and those who have offered 
it have grown old in that service ; some content with 

3 



34 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the results of their work, deeming the One God 
served thereby ; others questioning within themselves 
if there might not possibly be more and higher revela- 
tions than are shown in their creeds ; if there might 
not be, possibly, progress in the perception of the 
nature of God which would bring, inevitably, prog- 
ress in all formulations about God and His law. 

To those occupying the latter position only can be 
born that forerunner of the Spirit which proclaims, 
" He that cometh after me is greater than I." They 
alone can have that revelation which, brought to 
birth from them, makes " ready a people prepared for 
the Lord ; " makes ready or helps forward those pre- 
pared to see and follow beyond the beaten track of 
conservatism, to the finding of man and of God. 

Not so many years ago the trial of a clergyman, of 
one executing " the priest's office before God in the 
order of his course," for heresy, shocked the whole 
Christian world. He was universally looked upon as 
one " fallen from grace," a backslider whom good 
Christians must beware of. 

To-day such an occurrence shows that the offender 
is no offender in the eyes of a large number of those 
whose names are upon church rolls ; shows that he has 
the sympathy, more or less openly expressed, of a 
large body of people who, within themselves, are in 
the same position he occupied before being pro- 
nounced a heretic because he spoke out. 

They are not satisfied with the teachings given 
forth as authoritative and are seeking for something 
better ; and those portions of these teachings which 
make God a vengeful being, unjust to mankind for 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 35 

the furtherance and maintenance of His own glory, 
they feel compelled to give up and turn from ; and 
this must and will be heresy to those so bound by the 
letter of modern Christianity that they are imper- 
vious to its true spirit. 

But only to this priest is that revelation which re- 
sults in his son or a higher order of priest ; one who 
presents and preserves the true letter, that which is 
conformed to the spirit instead of contrary to it. 
Such a one goes into the temple of the Lord alone 
while the multitude of the people are praying with- 
out together. He goes for himself, with singleness 
of purpose, into that inner sanctuary where only we 
are alone ; turns from ecclesiastical authority to the 
Infinite above whence cometh our help, and through 
that honest, earnest desire to receive from on high 
that he may truly minister to that praying multitude 
without, comes face to face with the angel of the 
Lord who stands only " on the right side of the 
altar ; " on the inside, in the sanctuary, not in the 
without; and whose message cannot be received 
except the priest leave the outside and come in unto 
him. 

" And it came to pass, that while he executed the 
priest's office before God in the order of his course, 
according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot 
was to burn incense when he went into the temple of 
the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people 
were praying without at the time of incense. And 
there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord stand- 
ing on the right side of the altar of incense." 

How many clergymen of the present day burn 



36 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

that incense unto the Lord, and how many burn it 
unto the people ? How many speak the highest truth 
they are able to perceive, honestly and fearlessly, and 
how many speak less than that because it better suits 
the people ? 

Only those who burn the incense unto the Lord 
as it is the true office of the priest to do see the 
angel at the altar, hear his voice, receive his revela- 
tion. 

" And when Zacharias saw him he was troubled, 
and fear fell upon him." It is natural at first for this 
priest to feel troubled and somewhat fearful when he 
stands face to face with a higher truth than that which 
he has been presenting to the people ; when he sees 
where the letter of the Law entrusted to his keeping 
is at fault, and perceives that it is his duty eis?i priest 
unto the Lord to speak according to this revealed 
spirit instead of according to the faulty letter. 

Yet strength and courage come to him as he hears 
the message which is for him only as a minister unto 
the people. 

" But the angel said unto him. Fear not, Zacharias : 
for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall 
bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 
And thou shalt have joy and gladness and many shall 
rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight 
of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong 
drink ; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even 
from his mother's womb. And many of the children 
of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And 
he shall . . . make ready a people prepared for the 
Lord." 



THE LETTER AND TBE SPIRIT. 37 

That prayer of Zacharias which is so heard and 
answered is that constant unceasing aspiration for 
Divine Wisdom which ascends from creeds and their 
formulaters to the source of all knowledge ; which 
seeks to receive from thence that truth which is the 
eternally existing outside of forms, and, so receiving, 
bring it to birth for the world that his fellowmen, 
who are also praying without, may receive their 
answer to their own prayer. 

This priest who so receives has " joy and gladness " 
for himself and many rejoice at the birth of what he 
brings forth; for only this priest can present the 
true letter or that which is conformed to the Spirit 
of truth, instead of contrary to it, for the one who 
burns his incense before his congregation instead of 
before the 'Lord cannot receive it. 

This son, so brought forth, verily makes ready 
those who are prepared for the truth. He goes before 
it and turns the true seekers to it, for he points it out 
and the way to it as well. 

Only that people is prepared for the Lord who are 
prepared to give up whatever they have accepted 
from the teachings of others when a better, a truer, 
self-evident as such, is shown them, and to take the 
truer in its place ; and this never contradicts the 
truth in what they have formerly held to ; never ! 
Only that letter which was not in conformity to that 
truth. 

This people will rejoice at this priest's son who will 
not be great or powerful in the eyes of the world ; 
will be great only "in the sight of the Lord " ; be- 
cause only these few will be able to recognize his 



38 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

true greatness and power which come not from " wine 
or strong drink " ; not from without, the exterior, 
from that which would so feed and sustain it , for it is 
sustained from its birth by that which brought it 
forth ; by that with which it is allied , by the Holy 
Ghost ; by that spirit to which it is perfectly con- 
formed as the perfect letter. 

That priest who through his own aspiration toward 
the Spirit of truth, caring more for it than for the 
form entrusted to his keeping, receives the message 
which comes to him only from the right side of the 
altar is made dumb thereby ; he cannot speak as he 
did before. 

He cannot utter to his people that which he no 
longer believes himself , which he sees to be untrue 
in the light of his revelation ; and he must remain so 
dumb till he can give voice to that truth revealed , 
till his son is born whom he names according to the 
message ; for whose name he has a higher authority 
than the opinions of men who would call the child 
after his father : who would see it only as the con- 
tinuance of what they already had; who are not 
ready to see its nature till it shall do its own work 
for them. 

" And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they 
came to circumcise the child ; and they called him 
Zacharias, after the name of his father. And his 
mother answered and said. Not so ; but he shall be 
called John. And they said unto her, There is none 
of thy kindred that is called by this name." 

Truly no member of the priesthood after the order 
of Aaron has or can bear a new name ! They but 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 39 

hand down to the next generation what they have 
been entrusted with as its guardians who have no 
business with revelations or new departures. No John 
was ever born out of ecclesiastical conservatism. 

" And they made signs to his father, how he would 
have him called. And he asked for a writing table, 
and wrote, saying, His name is John. And they 
marveled all. And his mouth was opened immedi- 
ately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and 
praised God." 

How many who bow before that altar whereon 
they have- laid their all, by caring more for the truth, 
and that it ^lould be made manifest to and estab- 
lished in the world, than for the fulfillment of their 
own personal desire — and who are so truly minis- 
ters unto the people who are praying for it every- 
where, the world over — have made their first declara- 
tion in accordance with the message received beside 
that altar, on " a writing table " ; who have so passed 
on that message to the people which has caused 
them to marvel because it was not in accordance 
with that handed down from generation to generation 
intact ! 

Truly " the pen is mightier than the sword," for 
where that cuts down opponents the pen raised up 
those who do royal and bloodless battle for impersonal 
truth ; and its work lies and makes its own way to 
the hearts and understanding of the people when the 
one who sat at the writing table has passed into the 
invisible. 

The true letter or statement has to win recognition 
for itself. That is accorded without evidence only 



40 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

by those who give it birth and who have received 
their own evidence which is not seen of men. 

In this account of the two conceptions — of Elisa- 
beth and Mary — the messenger is the same : showing 
the Unity between them. With John the angel 
Gabriel announces it to the father, and with Jesus, 
to the mother. 

Here also is a grand meaning which can be only 
briefly alluded to within the limits of one lesson. 
The letter or form through which the way is prepared 
for the spirit, is the legitimate birth from the rational 
nature ; the product which it brings forth as its share 
of the joint work which makes the Christ — not the 
doctrinal but the individual and universal Christ — 
manifest ; and the spirit which is the presence of the 
Christ in the world because the presence of the per- 
fect figure of the Christ, is the equally legitimate 
birth or product from the woman or intuitional nature. 

It is this father and mother which ensure first the 
forerunner, and then the one for whom the way is thus 
prepared . 

Those of you who are familiar with the meaning of 
Genesis will perceive the significance of the " sixth 
month" in which the angel was sent unto Mary; 
will see that Jesus as the seventh day of the seventh 
day, the seventh and highest type, is the last in that 
process from mortality to immortality which marks 
it finished. 

Mary's visit to Elisabeth after the Annunciation, 
the leaping of the babe at her salutation, portrays the 
quickening of the letter by the spirit. It it not a 
dead letter which shall be brought forth as the result 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 41 

of revelation ; not a husk without the kernel ; but 
one vivified by the eternal truth and which speaks 
truly when it says " one mightier than I cometh." 

It is the spirit which alone giveth life to every creed,- 
every doctrine, every formulation which is for the 
guidance of mankind. Non-perception of this spirit 
kills or prevents the result otherwise possible. 

John the Baptist, the forerunner, the perfect letter 
which reveals, uncovers the spirit for those prepared 
for it instead of obstructing the sight of it; which 
points to that spirit and says " Behold it, not me, and 
receive its baptism as higher than mine, " is truly 
"the prophet of the Highest" as declared by his 
father who has found voice through his birth. 

"And thou shalt be called the prophet of the 
Highest : for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord 
to prepare his ways ; to give knowledge of salvation 
unto his people ... to give light to them which sit in 
darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet 
into the way of peace. " 

O Bible students of to-day! Do you recognize 
and realize the meaning of these words ? Do you 
see that the letter of that book is but " the prophet 
of the Highest " and not that Highest? That it but 
points to that which cometh after itself and so truly 
goes before the face of the true Man to prepare his 
way ? To give knowledge of salvation from mortal 
sense and its pains and penalties, from ignorance and 
its consequence unto the Lord's people ; unto those 
who are prepared for the revelation of their true 
selves and of the one God from whom that Self is in- 
separable ? To so give light to those who sit in the 



42 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

darkness of materiality, surrounded on every hand by 
the shadow of its death ? To guide the feet of those 
who are ready to walk, into that way — that only way 
of peace because it leads ever to a higher and higher 
consciousness of ourselves and of all things, which 
knows how to " choose the good and refuse the evil, " 
so making and maintaining that peace, in the midst 
of all contrary to it, which is better and more to be 
desired than mere happiness ; that peace that little 
by little grows into the everlasting peace which is 
yours and mine when we have won it through mastery 
of all less than it ? 

In this record John grows to manhood in the 
wilderness or " till the day of his showing unto 
Israel," which is a symbolical presentation of the 
growth of this letter which is one with the spirit to 
where it can stand against tradition successfully — 
tradition being represented by the high priests Annas 
and Caiaphas — and declare the truth, which con- 
tradicts tradition, unto the people. 

So it is truly " the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness " of dogma, of perversion of the letter of the law, 
of beliefs and opinions about the invisible side of 
ourselves and of the truth of being which governs 
there ; the voice which cries " Prepare ye the way 
of the Lord " — the way for the true Man to come to 
you — " make his paths straight. Every valley shall 
be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought 
low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the 
rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall 
see tlie salvation of God." 

O the grand meaning of this passage ! This 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 43 

declaration of what shall come when the letter and 
the spirit are fully together in the world ! All the 
seeming contradictions shall disappear ; the superi- 
ority of this creed over that one ; the greater measure 
of holiness with this sect than with that one; the 
" we alone are right and you are all wrong." 

All these shall then vanish, for " every valley shall 
be filled " and " every mountain and hill " so " brought 
low," making instead of the toilsome climbing of the 
mountain erected by human ignorance and weary 
descent into the valley of darkness which such 
mountains make, a straight and even road into the 
kingdom of God. 

Those rough ways which cut and wound the tired 
feet of the always journeying pilgrims, so made 
smooth for them that they may continue on in the 
way to that kingdom ; may enter in and take posses- 
sion and none of them be barred out ; not one weary, 
footsore traveler missing his way without again find- 
ing it, and so reaching that which waits at its end for 
every one of God's children who share alike in their 
inheritance as such ; not one of them disowned or 
disinherited. 

So shall all find at last that the God of Abraham, 
of Isaac and of Jacob, is not a special God for a 
special people, but the Universal Father for a uni- 
versal brotherhood, in which is neither Jew nor Gen- 
tile but only brothers. 

The demonstrations which prove the truth of the 
letter, the works which are the fruit by which the 
tree is known, belong to the Jesus instead of to the 
John, or to the spirit, not the letter. It is that 



44 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

which produces them ; they are the accompaniment 
of it only. 

Where John is recorded as sending to Jesus to 
know if He is the one who is to come, the one whose 
forerunner he is, the reply, " Go your way and tell 
John what things ye have seen and heard ; how that 
the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the 
gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever 
shall not be offended in Me." 

Wherever the Spirit of truth is, there too will be 
its demonstrations, the works which prove their 
source, the fruits which proclaim the tree that bears 
them good ; and blessed indeed is that one who shall 
not be offended with the one through whom they are 
done, because his former views, his education, the 
declarations of his teachers and lawgivers, religious 
and secular, declare them impossible ; who is able to 
look beyond them and their decisions to that which 
is ever made known to us individually when we" 
follow the advice which proves itself true, " Seek, 
and ye shall find ! " 

As the works of the Jesus were denounced and 
condemned in the day they were performed ; as they 
were but the natural result of the understanding of 
the nature of Man in his relation to the First Cause 
of all, so will they be the result to-day and in aU 
days when the same understanding opens the way 
for them. They will be the equally natural products 
which will be pronounced supernatural by those 
who are more superstitious than rational, as frauds 
by those who believe that their present knowledge 



1 



THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 45 

covers the whole ground of the possible; and as 
diabolical by the high priests of tradition. 

,Tn the 7th chapter of Luke it is said : "And all the 
people that heard him " — Jesus in reference to John 
— " and the publicans, justified God, being bap- 
tized with the baptism of John. But the Phari- 
sees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against 
themselves, being not baptized of him." 

Only those baptized with the baptism of John, or 
those who see the true nature of the letter of the 
law, as only the pointer-out of the true way hut not that 
way ; who can ever distinguish between the letter and 
the spirit, knowing that the power is with the latter 
and only seemingly with the former through their 
unity, will " justify God " ; or recognize that the 
Almighty and Omnipotent Truth is back of both 
letter and spirit, and is reached only through such 
use of the letter as make% its user one with its spirit ; 
and those reject the counsel of God who turn from a 
new letter with no effort to find its spirit because it 
does not accord with their old one. 

Truly Wisdom is justified of her children, even as 
superstition and error are justified of theirs. " By 
their fruits shall ye know them." 

In these records of the Four Gospels, John is de- 
clared to be beheaded in prison, but not till the so- 
called miracles of Jesus have been performed. The 
presence of the Spirit of truth in the world, the 
works which testify of its presence, necessarily con- 
fine the letter to its own field of operation. Its 
work cannot exceed its own limitations, and those 
limitations cast it into prison or prevent it from 
accomplishing the work of the Spirit. 



46 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Those who perceive and receive the spirit need no 
longer the letter, which has done its part for them in 
pointing out the spirit and preparing the way for it. 
The spirit's activity, the works which prove that it 
is active, render needless the letter for those who re- 
ceive them ; and in this way John is beheaded. 

All who have received his baptism need him no 
longer ; all who have not, would not yet. His work 
is done when the Jesus manifests the Christ to the 
world. 

My friends ! let us value the letter of that which 
has been named Christianity, truly ; but let us be 
careful that over-valuation does not behead its spirit 
for us. Recognize that letter for what it is ; truly 
the voice of one crying in the wilderness of ecclesias- 
ticism, rationalism, materialism, andsupernaturalism ; 
but it is not the truth ; it points the way to that as 
coming after itself to the one who can receive, first, 
its baptism, which is the lower, knowing that the 
higher baptism, that of the spirit, must follow for the 
mighty works to be done which prove the Christ, or 
man's divine nature, in the world. 

Let the letter be beheaded for us through our 
recognition of its limitations. Let us never accept 
the John as the Jesus, never attempt to put him in 
that place, but cast him into prison through our un- 
derstanding that the spirit must follow for us and 
work with us to its own manifestation. 

So shall that beheading, which is inevitable for the 
letter of the law, which so manifests its bondage, 
leave the spirit free to manifest the freedom of the 
sons of God ; the freedom from all bondage which 
belongs to us as our divine inheritance. 



TS:E IMMAUULAIM VOMUJilFTlOIf. 47 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 

Luke i. 26-35. 

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God 
unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth. 

To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the 
house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. 

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art 
highly favoured, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among 
women. 

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast 
in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. 

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary; for thou hast 
found favor with God. 

And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth 
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. 

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: 
and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father 
David : 

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his 
kingdom there shall be no end. 

Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know 
not a man ? 

And the angel answered and said unto her. The Holy Ghost 
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee : therefore also that holy thing which shall be born 
of thee shall be called the Son of God. 

Matt. i. 18-25. 

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise : When as his 
mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, 
she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 

Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to 
make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. 



48 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the 
Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of 
David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife ; for that which 
is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name 
Jesus : for he shall save his people from their sins. 

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 

Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, 
and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted 
is, God with us. 

Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord 
had bidden him, and took unto him his wife : 

And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son : 
and he called his name Jesus. , 



Among the many stumbling-blocks in the way of 
those who desire to accept and hold to the faith of 
their fathers, is the " Immaculate Conception " as it 
is presented in church dogma. 

No other of them, plentiful as they are, seems so 
hard to get over as this one ; not even the Trinity 
or "three persons in one." 

Many who can accept the Trinity halt at this decla- 
ration and give it only half-hearted allegiance at best, 
because, try as they will to believe it, they are unable 
to do that violence to their own natures; and so they 
put it aside as one of those things which life in the 
next world is going to make plain to them and which 
only that life can. 

Others declare that they believe it on the basis that 
all things are possible with God. 

The simple faith which accepts the impossible as 
truth too sacred to be explainable may be admirable 
and commendable from certain points of view. From 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 49 

others, it may be seen as a bar to progress which can 
only truly go on when no limits are placed to its 
advances by misconceptions about what constitutes 
sacredness. 

Can anything be more sacred and holy than truth? 
Can anything be truly sacred or holy to us till we 
see its truth ? Does not that truth, perceived, con- 
stitute its sanctity ? Can another's declaration that 
this or that is true, sacred and holy, make it so for us ? 
Must not its truth and so its sacredness be percep- 
tible to ourselves ? And does not this perception on 
our part mark the line between superstition and 
reverence ? 

We revere all sacred and holy things, but this 
reverence is due to our perception of why they are so. 
Allegiance given on any other basis tends to super- 
stitious belief; tends in the contrary direction from 
understanding, which, according to Solomon, is more 
to be desired than all this world seems to contain. 

The superstitious awe in which the Bible is held 
prevents the understanding of its true nature which 
would reveal the interior significance of this same 
immaculate conception which is there recorded. 

The bloodless battle which is being waged to-day as 
in times past, though not then bloodless, is between 
superstition and truth, between the powers of dark- 
ness and the hosts of light ; and this has ever re- 
sulted and will ever result in the survival of the 
fittest. 

That thing or statement which is truer than another, 
which manifests more of truth than another, will 
survive that other, and both will be left behind by a 



50 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

still higher ; for truth alone is indestructible, and 

so eternally triumphant, while its manifestation is 
ever in the ascending scale ; and that feeling which 
is true reverence, because the consequence of per- 
ception, will survive that superstitious awe which is 
the open confession of ignorance. 

When we remember that books containing the 
language and incidents recorded in the Bible would 
be condemned and kept out of the way of the young 
if not destroyed by universal consent, needing no 
Anthony Comstock to that end ; remember that every 
father and mother in the land would be horrified at 
the thought of such a book in the hands of their 
children, we can measure somewhat the strength of 
that superstitious feeling about the Bible which is 
mistaken for reverence ; especially when we see these 
same fathers and mothers impress its reading upon 
their children as a duty. 

What an outcry would arise all over the land if it 
were sought to place a parallel book in the public 
schools ! And yet how conscientious and sincere are 
those who desire to bring this about with the Bible. 

Where the reading of this book is followed in fam- 
ilies as a duty, the questions of the children in regard 
to it invariably fail to elicit satisfactory answers : 
for children are usually far more logical than their 
elders till they too have been educated into the beliefs 
of superstition. 

When the true nature of the Bible is seen, these 
attempts to urge it upon children will cease ; for then 
it will also be seen that it requires the eye developed 
by growth and experience to read it, and that it is 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 51 

a sealed book to the other eye which can only see 
its letter. To that higher eye alone can be revealed 
its spirit. 

We would not think of giving an arithmetic to the 
child who can only read his primer, because it is some- 
thing he ought to be familiar with ! We should see 
the folly of giving something requiring complicated 
mental operations to one incapable of them ! And 
we should see this because we discerned the nature 
of the arithmetic and knew that it was beyond the 
mental range of the child who was yet on the plane 
of form, of visible signs, of letters, and could but 
feebly perceive and by no means grasp the meaning 
back of them. 

Yet this is the course which has been pursued with 
the Bible, the highest common text book we have of 
Spiritual science, because it covers that science in its 
range from lowest to highest problems. 

Those who are still struggling with visible forms 
or with the alphabet, depending upon a teacher to 
tell them if A is A and Z is Z, must master that al- 
phabet before they can go farther, just as the child 
must master his primer and grow, through his mas- 
tery, to where he can truly read higher books : and 
this reading does not consist in the repetition of their 
surface, but in the grasping of that which lies below 
it and making that his own. 

Not till the Bible is read in this way will the mis- 
takes and fallacies embodied in the religions founded 
upon its surface be seen ; not till then will the Immac- 
ulate Conception be known for what it truly is, and 
so seen to be the logical sequence of the law involved 



52 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

instead of an operation outside of law by which a per^ 
sonal Deity may the better manifest his own mag- 
nanimity which, to sinners, looks amazingly like in- 
justice ; for to bring a son into the world purposely 
to destroy him bears this aspect to the unre- 
generated. 

Amid all the contention for and against the truth 
of what is included in religious dogma as the Immac- 
ulate Conception " may be seen and followed a thread 
which, like the one in the labyrinth, will bring its 
finder and follower through the maze ; will enable 
him to see for himself both the truth and the untruth 
in what is presented to us all and which we must 
plunge into and work through or turn aside from to 
seek a way on higher by going around it. 

This thread must be grasped at the very beginning 
of the Bible at its first book. If it is so grasped and 
followed where it leads, it brings us to the Immaculate 
Conception through logical sequence and reveals it as 
a logical necessity instead of a glaring impossibility. 

If we read the first chapter of Genesis conceiving 
the God there spoken of as a personal being making 
a literal heaven and earth or two places, localities with 
all contained in them, out of nothing, we shall not 
find this thread ; and more, we shall never find the 
true significance of the Bible till we abandon that 
position. 

To come out right, we must start right. An error 
in our beginning makes error in our conclusions inev- 
itable. If we begin to read with the conception of 
God as impersonal instead of personal, as Mind, in- 
telligence itself instead of an intelligent Being with a 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 53 

mind, and this Mind the only one, the One God 
which is Self-existent, Indivisible and Eternal, this 
premise followed out to its own condusion, will bring 
us to the Immaculate Conception as one of them, and 
show us that it must inevitably take place with every 
one of us; show us that while there is but one such, 
that one is for all of us ; show us that while it is 
emphatically individual, it is also universal or for 
all mankind. 

To the one who can see this book, as a whole and 
in all its parts as being the record of individual 
existence from a Self -existent Cause* it is the record of 
his own life. He finds that every event there re- 
corded is but part of his own individual experience ; 
that every character there described is in him ; that 
he, the reader, is the entity of them, their experiences 
the entity of his own ; finds that all of them are in or 
belonging to that something which is more than flesh 
end blood and bone and which is ever struggling to 
know itself, therefore which must, before it can know 
itself, conceive immaculately or truly of itself. 

Beginning with the Self-existent God — the one 
Mind which always was and ever will be, we start 
with the eternal Abstract which finds expression in 
its idea or image. This Mind and its expression or 
idea, which is the Concrete, bear the relation to each 
other or Father and Son or Cause and Effect. 

These are the God of the first Chapter of Genesis 
and the Lord God of the second Chapter, this Lord 
God being individualized God as consequent upon 
or product of the Abstract God — the One Mind — 
through " the world " which is the " God said " — the 



54 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

creative power through which the Abstract produces 
the Concrete. 

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — the primal Trin~ 
ity in Unity are God, the Lord God, and the "God said" 
which are the ever-existing and so are the foundation 
of Creation. The finishing of Creation or the manifes- 
tation of what God is, is the secondary Trinity in 
Unity — the Lord Jesus Christ. Between this founda- 
tion and this finishing lies the process which brings 
the last, and this process, made visible, is the world 
which is the means through which that manifestation 
of God which completes Creation comes. 

The world, with its person, lies between the image 
or expression of God — the individual identity, and 
the manifestation of God, between the Lord and the 
Christ, and the person is the representative of both. 
Person is first declared in the second chapter of 
Genesis as that which is formed by the Lord God and 
is called Adam. It is mankind or a kind after man 
and the product of the nature of man ; for this Lord 
God who forms it is man the " image " of the first 
chapter — is the individual identity which expresses 
God and the power of God or the " God said " ; is 
the idea of the One Mind which has, as its nature, 
the forming or thinking power and which, in conse- 
quence, forms its own idea. 

Man as the idea of the One Mind produced through 
" the Word " or the " God said "—Thought—is the 
Son of God. Person as the idea of man produced 
through the thinking power is the Son of man. 
These two must be like each other, the perfect like- 
ness holding them in unity and holding this unity in 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, 55 

oneness with the eternal Abstract, the One God, the 
One I Am. 

This One I Am is expressed in the Lord — the 
individual identity, represented in the Jesus — the per- 
fect person, manifested in the Christ — the Self of that 
Lord ; and these three — this trinity in unity — stand 
to each other as Idea of God, idea of man, and per- 
fect likeness between the two, therefore also between 
these and God, the One I Am. 

We find the immaculate conception at the Abraham 
and Sarah stage in Genesis and its birth or visibility in 
the world in the New Testament. The conception of 
the thinking being, man — this always taking place in 
the woman-half of his nature — must be immaculate ; 
or the idea of man, his conception of himself, must 
be true, exactly in accordance with what he is as the 
Idea of Mind — the Son of God. 

The form or person which is the product of the 
forming power is passive as such, is no living thing ; 
but as it is acted upon by the nature of man this 
nature, is manifest through it — is made visible by 
means of it. 

Through person — this thought — ^projection from 
man as he is and ever will be, is manifested, first, the 
sense-nature because that first acts upon it; therefore 
the conceptions of the sense-nature are the first in 
order. 

It and these are what is called the Adam ; and the 
results of the conceptions of the sense-nature are the 
experiences of the Adam ; therefore this Adam can 
not be the perfect representative of the full nature 



56 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

of man, as only a degree of that nature is manifest 
through him. 

It requires the second Adam as that perfect rep- 
resentative ; and this second Adam cannot appear 
except a higher than the sense-nature has and holds 
its conception, manifesting it through person which, 
in itself, for what it is as such, is the same from 
.beginning to end of this process — from the first to 
the second Adam. 

The understanding and realizing nature of man 
alone will conceive truly of what man is, alone can 
have that immaculate or true conception impossible 
to the sense-nature whose conception is necessarily 
first in that process of manifestation which ends in 
the Christ and which is the corrupt or untrue. 

The understanding-nature is above the sense- 
nature ; its conception will be from the above instead 
of from the below. Hence the words of Jesus who is 
this conception visible in the world — "I am from 
above, ye are from below." 

The conception of the understanding-nature and 
the recognition that this alone is the true while the 
otlier is untrue, is Sarah's conception fi*om the Lord 
— from the above of the sense-nature instead of from 
below it, that lower or corrupt conception being 
washed clean in the flood which is the Noah-stage or 
stage of understanding. 

It is this conception of the understanding-nature 
that has supplanted the conception of the sense-nature 
which is brought to birth by the virgin because con- 
ceived in virgin purity — conceived independent of 
and contrary to the sense-nature. 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 57 

This conception is the true idea of man or man's 
true idea of himself — of what he is, and is the product 
of his understanding and recognizing nature instead 
of his sense-nature. It is the product of the Female 
in him — the ever-Virgin — is born out of her, fathered 
by her husband — the Male in him — and is the product 
of this duality which shows their unity. 

This immaculate conception or true idea of man — 
of what man is, is manifested through person, which 
is the same in itself all the way from the first Adam 
through whom is manifested the conception of the 
sense-nature, and the manifestation reaches from the 
first to the last, for person, being for the purpose of 
manifesting the nature of man, comes to its own end 
when this manifestation is complete ; when the Christ 
— the perfect likeness, has been truly shown forth. 

This is the difference between the first and the 
last Adam — the first and the last person. The differ- 
ence lies entirely in what is manifested through the 
person, not in that, for it is the same from bginning 
to end. With the first it is the untrue, the impure 
conception because the product of the seAse-nature. 
With the last it is the pure, the immaculate, because 
the true and the product of the higher nature which 
alone is able to conceive immaculately and because 
the female part of it is freed from subjection to sense 
through understanding. 

Sarah is the free woman in place of Eve, the woman 
in subjection ; and Mary is but the continuity from 
Sarah directly, while also the continuity from Eve 
indirectly, because this is through the Sarah. 

The whole process, from the Adam and Eve of Gene- 



58 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

sis to the Mary and Joseph of the New Testament, 
is consecutive and mathematically exact, as a whole 
and in every part, according to the law declared in 
the first chapter of Genesis. 

That which is brought forth by the Mary is exactly 
like that brought forth by the Eve. It is person, in 
its first and last stage. As person, there is no dif- 
ference between the Cain and the Jesus. 

But in the natures manifested through these there 
is all the difference possible. Through the first the 
sense-nature of man alone is manifested and the 
mistakes of this nature, with their consequences, 
contain all the " sin, sickness and death" of the Bible. 

Through the last, the full and true nature of man, 
as the Son of God, is manifested and therefore do- 
minion over the sin, sickness and death consequent 
upon the other as well for dominion over all things, 
even the limited sense of self, belongs to the nature of 
man, and when manifested, proves the Christ ; proves 
that the son of God is in the world through the per- 
son which represents him. 

The view of Jesus' birth— of the Virgin's child which 
is held and tauglit by the church, when accepted as 
authoritative, shuts out its true meaning as shown by 
the Bible when its statement is followed. The New 
Testament gives the genealogy of Jesus twice. Mat- 
thew gives it from Abraham only, while Luke 
gives it from Adam; and there is a logical reason for 
this difference, for the one gives the genealogy of the 
person only, while the other gives the genealogy of 
the nature which was manifested through the person. 

The person — Jesus — is traced from Adam, for he 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, 59 

is but the continuity of person which begins with 
Adam ; and person is only that which is formed by 
the Lord God — that which has its day and dies in 
its own day for it belongs to no other. 

It belongs to the seventh day of Creation and ends 
with it ; for that is the Lord's day, the day of manifes- 
tation ; and when the manifestation is complete when 
the Christ is fully manifested, person comes to its 
natural end, for it is but the representative figure 
upon and through which the nature of man acts and 
so produces its own manifestation. 

But the nature operating upon and through the 
Jesus is advisedly traced from Abraham, for this is 
the point of immaculate or pure and true conception 
of what man is. It is " the seed of Abraham " which 
comes forth as it is promised. 

The Adam-nature, the sense conception of what 
man is, comes to an end through the flood of under- 
standing, and after that only is the true conception 
possible — the conception of the higher nature freed 
from its subjection to the lower. In that sense Abra- 
ham is the father of the " chosen people *' or those who 
alone can bring forth the immaculate one. 

It is the lower or sense-nature which is manifested 
through the Adam ; it is the higher nature which, 
freed from subjection to the lower, rules it and its 
consequences and is manifested through the Jesus ; 
while that person is flesh and blood like any other 
person and is born the same way ; born from the unity 
of husband and wife in the world ; born of Joseph as 
well as Mary ; yet it is the immaculate conception 
which is so born, for that alone is made manifest ; and 



60 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

it is the child which was with Mary before she came 
together with her husband. His office was to help 
her bring it forth through its representative person. 
This person or Jesus was born of Mary and Joseph. 
The Christ was born from Mary because with her to 
be born or brought forth. She brought forth her 
child in the Christ. She brought forth Joseph's child 
in the Jesus. 

The sense-nature with its consequences are with 
this person under foot ; hence he is the " Master " in 
the world for this mastery which is the dominion 
over all things inherent in the nature of man, is at 
last made manifest. Belonging to Christ, it is man- 
ifested — is visible when the Christ is visible. 

The Christ manifested the divine nature of man 
proven. Jesus readies his end, for this is the office 
of person which ends on the seventh day That seen 
after his death is the Christ only ; the spiritual reality, 
for the representative figure has reached its own lim- 
itations. 

Through the process which is the life-worK recorded 
of the Jesus person, or the veil of the temple is rent 
in twain ; and that temple of the living God, tne eternal 
spiritual being, is so uncovered to those who have 
eyes with which to see it and who can stand in the 
place where it is visible. The disciples had to go to 
the place Jesus told them of to see their risen Lord; 
and this was a mountain, a position or elvation way 
above the level of sense which sees only person. 

Those not accustomed to thinking in the abstract 
will not readily see this meaning to the Immaculate 
Conception ; but if the desire for light, for knowledge 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 61 

of truth, be strong enough to lead them into such 
thinking ; into the search within which such thinking 
is, they will find that, little by little, its meaning will 
grow clearer, and that in this way they will get the 
revelation of their own selves ; in this way they will 
come face to face with their selves, or attain self- 
knowledge, the highest wisdom. 

If there is any one thing which impels the would- 
be helper of mankind to " cry aloud and spare not " 
it is the evident disinclination, with so many people, 
to think ; and the accompanying inclination to accept 
statements on others' self-claimed authority instead 
of using their own divine power to see what is 
claimed be true. 

How can people sit quietly down and listen to the 
same statements poured into their ears year after 
year without a mental effort at examination on their 
own part ? Probably because they believe what 
they are told, that they have no right of private 
judgment. 

For many years the black American of the south 
had no right of private judgment. That was not 
only denied him by his master whose property he was, 
but by the government, which recognized him only as 
property as well ; but all these years that the right 
was denied, the divine judgment, which ever reverses 
the decision of self-claimed and constituted autho- 
rity when it is against justice and right, was roll- 
ing up till its volume, as an overwhelming flood, 
swept through the south and carried with it, never 
more to return, the human-made law which was con- 
trary to and in defiance of the law of God. 



62 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Individual freedom and individual responsibility 
because of that freedom is the divine right of every 
member of the human brotherhood, black or white, and 
not till this mental freedom is claimed and declared 
for ; this responsibility recognized and maintained 
through the maintenance of this freedom, will the 
grandest and most glorious of all emancipations come 
for us ; the recognized and conceded right and duty to 
do our own thinking. 

The power to think is divine ; it is of God, not of 
the brain. It belongs to the individual identity, to 
the " I " which, through its use only, can conceive 
of itself ; and when you and I abrogate our divine 
right to use this divine power to this divine end, we 
throw away our birth-right, for this is that right 
which is ours because of our birth or our individual 
existence from the Self-existent Spirit. 

Remember the lesson taught b}^ the Moses and the 
burning bush ! When he asks what God is, the 
reply comes " I am that I am " ; or " find out for 
yourself what I am ! " When that question is asked 
to-day, the only satisfactory answer must be found 
by the individual consciousness for itself. It is an- 
swered within, not without ; and only the inner ear 
hears it; only the individual consciousness knows 
its truth. 

What is man ? is the question inseparable from the 
other, for the answer to one will give the answer to 
the other; and not till, little by little, through the 
exercise of this power comes the revelation of the 
nature of man, can he be conceived immaculately 
by us and then brought forth to prove his own di- 



THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. QS 

vinity by the virgin or purity in us ; making thereby, 
and only in that way, the One God manifest to 
the world. 

The results of this wonderful power are but little 
understood to day, and so the "Immaculate Concep- 
tion " is a mystery. It produces for us always ; it 
must bring forth fruit, and these fruits must be 
according to their seed. 

What we think we create for ourselves ; that pro- 
duct may be either " corrupt before God " or immacu- 
late ; meaning that it may be contrary to truth or in 
perfect accord with it. 

So long as there is the least vestige of phe untrue 
in what we think about ourselves, so long is our con- 
ception not immaculate; and so long must we ex- 
perience the consequences which show us the nature 
of our conception ; for till we see its non-likeness to 
truth, we will not abandon it. 

All of us are passing through those experiences 
which precede the immaculate conception of ourselves 
as they are recorded in this book, the Bible. We are 
so working out our salvation from all conceptions 
which are *' corrupt " or not true of ourselves. 

Step by step we are working our way from the 
Adam stage to the Jesus stage ; covering that whole 
process from mortality to immortality. 

Only the immaculate conception can be immortal, 
because it only is in accord with and sustained by 
indestructible truth ; every other conception or every 
mortal self must die ; must come to its own legitimate 
end because of its own limitation. 

Only that one which is immaculate, or co-extensive 



64 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

with that which is conceived of — with the " I " the 
individual identity and so immortal, survives. 

This immaculate conception is of the " Holy- 
Ghost " ; from spiritual, not the Adam-sense ; its 
birth is that which is so born of the Spirit and that 
alone enters into immortality. 

The Holy Ghost, the divine breath, the Creative 
power overshadows us all; as the Highest power or 
the power of that Mind which is God, it comes upon 
the woman or pure intuitional nature in us and brings 
forth, through her, its product who is so the son of the 
Highest instead of the lowest power and who proves 
his nature. • 

How many of us are yet conscious of this over- 
shadowing? Are ready to conceive of that which 
we may later give birth to as this son of the Highest ? 
How many of us like Cain, continually slay this possi- 
bility for ourselves by recognizing and obeying the 
lower sense as .master? 

This same Holy Ghost will come to all of us when 
the Mary in us is ready to receive it, when the Sarah 
has first been visited by the Lord; the result of which 
visitation is the seed whose fruit is the Jesus. 

When that creative power works through us with- 
out hindrance through our " letting there be ", its 
product will be immaculate ; and so will our several 
selves be redeemed from that sense which would 
ignorantly corrupt them, and be made sons of light. 

Do not let us look upon this birth from the virgin 
Mary as it is presented in religious dogma, and so 
blind ourselves to its true significance ! 

Do not let us feel that there is anything too holy 



THJB IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 65 

to be looked at and through, in all sincerity, to know 
the truth ! 

The Bible speaks to us individually ; it is one 
individual process that is recorded there, and it is 
yours and mine. 

5 



66 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE TEMFTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 

Matthew rv. 1 — 11. 

" Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be 
tempted of the devil. 

And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was 
afterward an hungred. 

And when the tempter came to him, he said. If thou be the Son 
of God, command that these stones be made bread. 

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by 
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God. 

Then the devil taketb him up into the holy city, and setteth him 
on a pinnacle of the temple. 

And saith unto him. If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself 
down : for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning 
thee : and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time 
thou dash thy foot against a stone. 

Jesus said unto him. It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God. 

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 
and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them ; 

And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou 
wilt fall down and worship me." 

Then saith Jesus unto him. Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is 
written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve. 

Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and mia- 
stered unto him. 



I 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILBEBNESS, 67 

The experience of Jesus of Nazareth recorded in 
the Gospels under this head, has a grand and signif- 
icant meaning when the true nature of this Jesus of 
Nazareth is discerned. 

When he is seen as the perfected mortal, the last 
stage in that " mortal passage from sense to soul " 
whose end waits immortality ; that last stage or type 
which glides or grows into the eternal that lies be- 
yond it as naturally as these stages or types have 
grown into each other all the way through the pro- 
cess — we shall also see what evangelicism has never 
revealed to us ; see that this temptation in the wilder- 
ness which succeeds the descent of the Holy Ghost, 
is a part of our own experience ; and because we find 
through this perception of Jesus as the typeman for 
the race, that what he is and all that is recorded of 
him, belongs to every one of us individually. 

We see as we never have before, the force of his 
declaration, " I am the way — no man cometh unto 
the Father but by me." Only in and by this way, 
whose name is Jesus, do we come unto the one Father 
of us all or " return unto the Lord." 

From its first step to its last, we too follow on ; 
just as when we walk after another along a road un- 
known to us, we plant our feet in his footprints, so 
making progress because the one we follow knows 
the way, and is ever ahead of us in consequence. 

These Four Gospels are records of this way with 
its footprints ; the one which leads us over the 
line between a part and the whole ; leads us out of 
the limitations of the part into the unlimited eternal 
All, where we " sit down at the right hand of the 



68 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

Father ; " for travel we must till we have passed 
over this way to its end, and ascended from it to that 
which always has been and always will be above it, 
beneath it, and enclosing it. We cannot sit down till 
this journey is made and we reach its end. 

These several footprints are clearly outlined in 
these records ; so clearly that " he who runs may 
read " if he but look with his eye, and not through 
spectacles that distort. It is a direct and easily fol- 
lowed sequence from the first appearance of Jesus as 
disputing with the doctors in the temple to the final 
one as the chief personage on Calvary's top, where he 
is lifted by the cross beyond the vision of those who 
placed him there. 

These records of these foot-prints of one who goes 
before us through mortality into immortality, are 
truly " a lamp to our feet and a guide to our path " ; 
for by their help we can see where to plant our feet, 
can see the end from the beginning ; can know that 
at whatever point in this way we now are, the rest is 
open before us, and no man, no church, no dogma, 
no worldly power can keep us from going on, if we 
will ; can place any " thus far and no farther " across 
our path through self-claimed and constituted author- 
ity. 

Through Jesus all mankind shall be saved ; and 
this salvation is not a concession because of individ- 
ual favor, but an eternal law that could not be other- 
wise ; for he is the way of salvation ; is that pictured 
truth which shows • us how to be saved from a con- 
sciousness of any and all things which is not eternal ; is 
not the real and desirable ; saved from a mortal, limited 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 69 

sense about all things, ourselves, our God or Cause, 
our relation to that God and future destiny ; and by 
following in this way, by growing out of these limita- 
tions — gaining the proof of this outgrowing in our 
own consciousness ; the proof that demonstrates itself 
— we are followers of Jesus in the true sense, and 
not followers of the traditions about Jesus ; because 
we are so led by the same spirit which is one for all 
of us. 

This is an all-important distinction for us to make. 
Are we true followers of the true Jesus or are we fol- 
lowers of the traditional Jesus, the latter a course 
which, according to this very book, the Bible, will 
make the " commandment of God " or the truth, of 
no effect with us ? 

Not tiU that sense, spiritual perception, which can 
see beyond the limitations of mortal or personal sense, 
is developed with us sufficiently to enable us to see 
through and beyond the traditional Jesus, or the 
Jesus of mortal sense, will we see him truly as that 
way in which we must walk ; see him truly as the 
leader whom we must follow because his footprints 
must receive our own feet. 

Not till we see the Jesus scientifically, or as a 
logical necessity, instead of traditionally, will we be 
truly Christians in the highest sense ; or be of those 
who follow truth as authority instead of authority 
for truth. 

Where this is the position held, all factional divisions 
will disappear, and as one body with many members we 
shall be led by the one Spirit to that end of mortality 
which is assured from the foundation of the world, 



70 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

and SO enter into that eternal spiritual consciousness 
which is prepared for all ready for it. 

This temptation in the wilderness is preceded by 
the descent of the " Holy Ghost " as Luke records it, 
and the " Spirit of God " according to Matthew ; and . 
this temptation is possible only as its sequence. 

The " Devil " or the tempter, is mortal sense which 
is so personified and localized, or made objective like 
everything else in this book ; and this temptation is 
that process, that phase of self-consciousness in which 
the mortal or natural sense suggests, or tempts, and the 
immortal or spiritual sense determines ; or the devil is 
resisted and so his power overcome. 

There cannot be this conflict between the devil 
and Jesus, between mortal sense and spiritual sense, 
in which the latter is victorious because the more 
potent of the two, till that sense has descended into 
the consciousness. 

This sense is not the first or natural to a mortal; 
it is with its kind, the immortal or spiritual ; and 
hence must come to or descend to the mortal for him 
to use it, and so resist, overpower the natural sense 
of the natural man ; for him to withstand the temp- 
tation of the devil or the suggestions Of mortal sense, 
and come off victor. 

How emphatically is here taught the lesson that 
"all our help cometh from on high" not from 
the plane of mortality. There is nothing belonging 
to that which can either lead or lift us above it 
and away from it. 

All progress toward the immortal which is only jf 
growth away from mortality, can be ours only as we 



t 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 71 

think and act with the Spirit of God after its descent 
upon us ; and this is the direct consequence of the 
opening of the heavens upon us. 

This record in Matthew does not read as if those 
who saw the baptism of Jesus by John also saw the 
heavens opened, although it is frequently so under- 
stood. 

According to the 16th verse of , the 3d chapter "And, 
lo, the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the 
Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting 
upon him : and lo a voice from heaven saying, This is 
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 

The heavens opened for him ; the descent was for 
and upon him ; the voice was for him only ; or this 
is the record of an individual experience which is 
the preparation for the temptation in the wilderness ; 
that an individual experience as well. 

The next chapter^-for these words close the third — 
begins with " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into 
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," showing 
by the first word " then " the immediate connection 
between this descent of the Spirit and this temptation 
in the wilderness, which is also shown to be of a far 
higher order than any experience which has preceded 
it ; for he was led " up " of the Spirit into the 
wilderness. 

This wilderness is a plane of self -consciousness 
which is " up " or above preceding planes, and this 
descent of the Spirit makes it so ; for here is the ability 
to recognize the nature of the tempter, which does 
not belong at first to the natural sense of the natural 
man. 



72 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

This temptation in the wilderness is higher, more 
subtle and more delusive by far than the tempting of 
Eve by the serpent as it is recorded in Genesis. That 
is the tempting of mortal sense by appearance ; this 
is the temptation of spiritual sense by mortal sense ; 
one which lies farther along in this journey from 
mortal consciousness to immortal consciousness; is 
at the point where spiritual sense becomes active and 
strives with mortal sense ; where the limitations of 
mortal sense are recognized and spiritual sense enables 
us to look beyond them so that we are confronted with 
this wilderness which is the consequence of this pro- 
gress ; for by seeing with a higher sense than we have 
before been conscious of, we see anew, and, bewildered, 
we try to reconcile the new with the. old, to make 
the two harmonize ; and only through this experience 
do we find that they do not mingle and that what 
we say must be yea ! yea ! and nay ! nay ! 

It is temptation in and to a far higher state of self- 
consciousness than our natural one ; a temptation 
which is resisted and overcome only by and through 
this spirit of God which has descended into that con- 
sciousness and become one with it. 

It is this Spirit of God which descended upon Jesus 
that answers all the propositions of the devil ; that 
speaks in and through the Jesus, giving reply to every 
suggestion, every prompting, every desire of mortal 
or personal sense. 

It is the word of God, the " God said," the truth 
of being, that, through spiritual sense, gives reply to 
mortal sense and puts out of the individual conscious- 
ness all of its allurements, because, when desire for 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 73 

these is less than the desire for the beyond of them, 
they do not attract and hold the attention ; that is 
fixed on the mark of the mortal's high calling. 

With every one of us, the mortal, the natural sense, 
believes the visible to it to be the real of living and 
of being ; and through experience that higher sense 
is developed which shows us otherwise. 

But temptation is not overcome, the suggestions 
of mortal sense are not passed beyond because of this 
development. Yet the power to turn from them 
through seeing them for what they are and to pro- 
nounce truly upon them, is ours in consequence ; for 
the higher sense shows us the real, the true, because 
it looks through the visible, pierces its limitations 
and discerns the beyond. 

This temptation in the wilderness is the contrast 
yet the sequence to the tempting of Eve and of Adam 
through her. The first temptation finds no sense able 
to see its nature. The yielding of Eve and of Adam to 
what is called the allurements of the serpent is the 
natural consequence of their innocence which is igno- 
rance. 

In Genesis we read that all things were brought 
to Adam " to see what he would call them ; and what- 
soever Adam called them that was the name thereof." 
Here is the mortal sense which sees only the visible 
representatives and can see no farther ; which pro- 
nounces as it sees and consequently falls short of the 
truth of things. 

The experience of Adam and Eve is the inevitable 
result of this position ; their fall is the fall into ex- 
perience and so into more knowledge, the continu- 



74 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

ation of which brings revelation of the invisible 
truth ; and so, at last, as the fruit of both experience 
and revelation, the Jesus as the upgrowth from Adam 
and Eve who is tempted also ; but, who can pronounce 
upon every declaration of mortal sense according 
to the truth of being, giving the answer at all points 
which is the answer of positive truth to perverted 
truth ; for this Jesus is the mortal who knows in 
place of the mortal who believes ; the one who sees 
with spiritual instead of mortal sense ; who under- 
stands that which the Adam and Eve were naturally 
blind to, and who declares the truth visible to him 
in consequence. 

Step by step has the process between the Adam 
and the Jesus brought about this result ; enabled the 
one "full of the Holy Ghost" to be "led of the 
Spirit " into this wilderness which is the preparation 
for the mighty works recorded as taking place after- 
ward. 

Not until resistance instead of yielding to every 
temptation of the devil, to that mortal sense which is 
here personified as the devil ; not till truthful answers 
to every one of its suggestions and declarations are 
forthcoming, can these works which make manifest 
the divine nature of man, be unfailingly performed. 

Out from the wilderness where the only guide and 
sustain er is spiritual consciousness through spiritual 
sense, must come the successful demonstrator of the 
nature of the Christ. 

Only the one who comes out from thence as victor 
over that devil can make the Christ manifest in, by, 
and through his works ; for the Christ as the divin- 



THE TEMPTATION IN TEE WILDEBNESS. 75 

ity of Man and so the likeness of God — the Divine 
personality — can be wholly manifested only through 
that mortal who is one in consciousness with the 
divinity and so acts in harmony with it. 

Victory in the wilderness is all essential to victory 
out of it ; victory for ourselves in our own within, to 
victory demonstrated to others in the without. 

We read in Luke that when the temptation had 
ended " Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit 
into Galilee ; " and there the work which is the con- 
sequence of the victory in the wilderness begins 
with a new interpretation of what is old with the 
people ; for He read to them from the book of Esais, 
and gave them a different meaning from the one they 
were accustomed to ; and why ? Because He spake 
with the tongue and power of the Spirit which had 
descended upon Him through spiritual perception ; 
that power which ever pierces the visible, the letter, 
and discerns and brings forth the waiting truth back 
of it. 

He came out of the wilderness with this power, so 
to speak, because of the victory in it. As spiritual 
sense there answered every prompting of mortal 
sense and destroyed the power of that sense to rule, 
so it answered the demand of the people for knowl- 
edge of the truth, for that knowledge which is 
wisdom ; for it alone could impart it. 

They were " in the synagogue on the Sabbath 
day ; " were there for instruction, for that help which 
should be theirs from their leaders and instructors ; 
and out of the same book from which these teachers 
instructed them, came a new revelation, a higher 



76 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

statement of the true than their old one, because 
the " power of the Spirit " brought it forth. 

And what was the consequence ? " They rose up 
and thrust Him out of the city." A parallel to our 
own times, is it not ? 

When any one to-day, because '^led by the Spirit," 
speaks in the " power of the Spirit," and so contra- 
dicts tradition, the people who are ruled by it like- 
wise rise up against him and thrust him out from 
the midst of them, because " Is not this Joseph the 
carpenter's son ? " Is not this one whom we have 
always known ? How can he presume to contradict 
our teachers and teach us ? 

But now, as then, such an one will pass through 
them and escape out of their hands, because " led of 
the Spirit " instead of by what leads them ; because 
ruled and sustained by it, to its own manifesta- 
tion. 

In this wilderness which precedes demonstration of 
truth, precedes the manifestation of man's nature, and 
so makes him visible to the only sense which can see 
him — the spiritual sense — we are all " an hungered ; " 
hungry for more and more of that bread which 
Cometh down from heaven ; a hunger which the 
stones of mortality cannot satisfy ; a hunger which 
mortal sense is powerless to appease ; whose cravings 
cease only through ministrations of angels ; through 
more and more realization of the divine invisible 
truth of our own being beside which this mortal 
sense of being, with its allurements, is as naught. 

This hunger is the consequence of seeing truly 
that '* man shall not live by bread alone, but by every 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 77 

word of God " ; seeing that man in eternal unity 
with the one Creator is forever sustained in all he is 
and all he does by that Creator ; that his life, his sus- 
tenance cannot be cut off ; that every " word " or 
every " God said " goes to make up man who, as the 
result, is inseparable from that which has produced 
him ; and the necessity for consciousness, for knowl- 
edge of his own nature and for the demonstration of 
it, is expressed in this answer of Jesus and in the one 
given to the suggestion to cast himself down from 
the pinnacle of the temple. 

The last and strongest temptation of all which 
must be overcome in this wilderness before we can 
come forth from it able to do the works which are 
its sequence, unfailingly, is what may be called, as a 
general term, ambition ; — the very opposite of aspira- 
tion. 

" And the devil, taking him up into an high moun- 
tain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world 
in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, 
All this power will I give thee and the glory of them : 
for that is delivered unto me ; and to whomsoever I 
will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, 
all shall be thine." 

Ambition is the most subtle tempter that we have 
to strive against ; the one to which we turn the most 
willing ear ; the one surest to cause us disappoint- 
ment and defeat when we listen to its beguiling with- 
out resistance and rejection. 

It assails those who have made progress beyond 
the visible plane as the real of being, more than those 
who are still there ; whispers its enticing words into 



78 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

their ears which catch them far sooner than those 
that are closed to aught but the grossest. 

It is a tempter which springs up full grown " in a 
moment of time," and shows the one to whom he 
comes " all the kingdoms of the world " as most desi- 
rable possessions which can be gained and held by a 
compromise with the devil ; a compromise with mortal 
sense by and through which the power will be his to 
have and hold them to himself. 

For this devil — mortal, personal sense — says truly, 
" All this power will I give thee and the glory of 
them ; for that is delivered unto me ; and to whom- 
soever I will I give it." 

To mortal sense only belongs this kind of power ; 
to it only are these possessions desirable. It only 
would stand as a ruler among men to whom all 
should bow down and do reverence as demanded 
by the Haman of old. It would have them look up 
to it as all potent and all powerful, and its rewards as 
the most to be coveted. 

Ah ! The one who listens and yields to this 
temptation in the wilderness but builds that gallows 
on which he is himself hung ; upon which his ambition 
and vanity are brought to an end, wliile his coveted 
power goes to the obscure and looked-down upon ; 
to one of the chosen people who refuses to give this 
demanded homage because led by a higher than 
mortal sense. 

To him only can true, because lasting, power be- 
long ; the higher sense alone commands it, and it is 
not of this world. 

How many of us to-day are listening and yielding 



T^E TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 79 

to this temptation in the wilderness ? Only such as 
recognize and to a degree use the higher sense, spirit- 
ual perception, can be so tempted ; for unconscious, 
ignorant following of the suggestions of mortal sense 
is no temptation ; there must be the ability to perceive 
the nature of and the power to resist the temptation, 
to make it such ; the unconscious following brings 
with it needed experience which shows or reveals 
what has been done. 

But those who have progressed far enough in the 
perception of the natureof the world and of mankind 
to see what it truly is are where they are approached 
by this tempter, brought face to face with this temp- 
tation. What the world calls honor, power, glory, 
wealth, and happiness are surely theirs if they follow 
mortal sense ; are surely not theirs if they follow 
spiritual sense. 

That following will bring them only what the 
world does not recognize ; the power to minister to 
the broken-hearted, to liberate the captive, to bind up 
the wounds of the suffering, to console the afflicted, 
to preach the gospel proclaiming the nearness of 
the kingdom of heaven, and to throw open its door 
for others to see the way in ; bring the power to for- 
get one's self ; the power to manifest the Christ in 
word and work. 

Again, some understanding of mental forces are far 
more potent than those denominated physical, brings 
with it the temptation to use them for personal pro- 
fit and glory ; for reputation, power, influence, and 
possessions that belong to the world only, because 
worldly in their nature ; impels the one having this 



80 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

understanding to seek personal recognition, demand 
personal homage, acquire a personal following which 
shall cause admiring throngs to cry out, " Thus shall it 
be done unto the man whom the truth delighteth to 
honor." 

And even if no desire for what is distinctively 
called worldly popularity is consciously felt, a subtler 
ambition may cause such a one to proclaim : " There 
is but one God and I am His prophet " ; and it may 
tempt this one to use these hidden powers to impress 
this belief upon the people as truth, cheating himself 
meanwhile with the like belief that truth is served, 
that God is glorified thereby. 

Let us remember the grand lesson taught by Shake- 
spear in the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, who through 
his ambition and his efforts to gratify its cravings is 
brought to where he exclaims, " I have touched the 
highest point of all my greatness ; and from that full 
meridian of all my glory, I haste now to my setting; 
I shall fall like a bright exhalation in the evening, 
and no man see me more." 

Ambition ! That all-potent and dominating in- 
fluence on the plane of mortal sense I How many 
victims does it number? How many who reach the 
meridian, the highest point of worldly glory, only 
to fall out of sight ; to learn needed lessons after 
that fall which aspiration, in place of ambition, 
would have saved them from ! 

Learn them in that solitude which forgetfalness 
on the part of those who formerly applauded makes 
more bitter and painful ; learn there that the true 
meridian of glory is not in this world but beyond it; 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS. 81 

is not in mortal, but in immortal, consciousness ; 
and that from it there is no fall. 

Let us take Wolsey's charge to Cromwell home to 
ourselves ; let us " fling away ambition, for by that 
sin fell the angels : how can man, then, the image of 
his Maker, hope to win by it ? Love thyself last ; 
cherish those hearts that hate thee. Corruption 
wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand 
carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be 
just and fear not : let all the ends thou aim'st at, be 
thy country's, thy God's, and truth's." 

How truly does this devil in the wilderness say, 
"The glory of the kingdoms of the world is delivered 
unto me ; and to whomsoever I will, I give it." 

Yet it is as true that this devil, this keeper and be- 
stower of worldly honors and possessions, must be 
worshipped, or recognized and followed, for them to 
be bestowed. 

" If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be 
thine." 

Are they worth the price? Are they worth this 
concession to and alliance with mortal sense, to the 
sure exclusion, little by little, of the eternal glories 
revealed to and gained through spiritual sense ? 

It is possible for every one of us to give the answer 
to this tempter and temptation given by Jesus in the 
wilderness — " Get thee behind me, Satan : for it is 
written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and 
him only shalt thou serve." 

Every one of us can resist and put behind us, or 
out of sight, this temptation ; and we surely will 
when our desire for things heavenly is stronger than 

6 



82 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

our desire for things worldly ; when the eternal truth 
of our being attracts us more than this sense of our 
being; when the allurements of this fall on ears 
dulled to them because strained to catch the heavenly- 
harmonies which are unceasing ; whose strains are 
sounding forever in higher states of consciousness, 
and whose echoes we can catch now, if we listen. 

Till this answer is given, this temptation put from 
us instead of embraced, our word cannot be " with 
power," our works cannot be those which are 
" mighty," because they manifest the Christ, or our 
divine nature. 

Worship only the truth ! Aspire ever to the Lord 
th}^ God ! To the true Man who ever reflects and 
so reveals God, though hid in the invisible. Stop at 
nothing short of this; accept nothing less; do not 
be content with or even pause to look at "the king- 
doms of the world " and their glory. 

What does it matter who stands foremost in the 
world to-day, receiving the most recognition and 
admiration ? Wliat does it matter that this one is 
well known and has a large following, and that one is 
unknown and has none ? That this one is applauded 
and that one condemned ? 

When we recognize that to "serve the Lord thy 
God " — to " wait on the Lord " is to keep the eye 
fixed on the immutable and unchangeable truth of 
being, on man as the image of God, and, giving allegi- 
ance to nothing less, to grow steadily day by day 
into the consciousness of that truth ; into that spirit- 
ual consciousness which is immortality, and in which 
the kingdoms of the world and their glory have no 



THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS, 83 

place, we shall give this answer ; and only so can we 
experience its consequence — receive the ministrations 
of angels; for they cannot be with and minister- 
unto us while the devil is unresisted and not put 
from us. 

Only when he leaves us through our command to 
get behind us — and here is shown the power over 
mortal sense which unity with spiritual sense through 
the descent of the Spirit of God gives us — do they 
come with those messages of peace and love which 
are the sustenance we need for the continuance of 
this journey from darkness to light ; for the doing of 
those .mighty works which must be done before we 
too can say, "It is finished." 

And this end comes only to those who can say, 
" ^'ot my will but thine be done ! " Not the will of 
limited mortal sense which insists upon the true to it, 
instead of the true in itself; but that unchanging 
will which is a constant, never-ceasing unfoldment 
of infinity. 

Through this temptation in the wilderness, this re- 
sistance and overcoming of the devil — for a season — 
this ministration of the angels, the coming into our 
consciousness of the thoughts of the one Mind as 
our food which the stones of the wilderness cannot 
supply, we go forth from it armed for the final vic- 
tory ; equipped for all that lies between this stage 
and the " I have overcome." 



84 A CatCAQO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 

Matthew xvii. 1-9. 

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his 
brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. 

And was transfigured before them : and his face did shine as 
the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking 
with him. 

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for 
us to be here : if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles ; 
one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 

While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them ; 
and behold a voice out of the cloud, wliich said. This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him. 

And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were 
sore afraid. 

And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not 
afraid. 

And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save 
Jesus only. 

And as they came down from the moimtain , Jesus charged them, 
saying. Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen 
again from the dead. 

In the three gospels which record the transfigu- 
ration of Jesus, Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's, the 
account is preceded, in all of them, by another which 
has an important bearing upon this transfiguration 
as aiding to reveal its meaning. 



THE TBANSFIGUBATION, 85 

These three records all declare the transfiguration 
of Jesus, not Christ ; although the headlines of the 
chapters in which the record is found state this fact 
in but one instance. The 9th chapter of Mark is 
prefaced by the headline " Jesus is transfigured " ; 
the 17th chapter of Matthew and the 9th chapter of 
Luke have " The transfiguration of Christ." 

The true significance of what is called " the trans- 
figuration " hinges upon the distinction between the 
Jesus and the Christ ; and this cannot be recognized 
unless the like distinction between the Son of Man 
and the Son of God is equally plain. It is the ac- 
count preceding that of the transfiguration — Jesus' 
questioning of His disciples as to whom He is — which 
emphasizes and illustrates this fact ; but the inter- 
dependence of the two will be clear, probably, only 
to that student of the Bible who searches instead of 
reads it, who seeks for its meaning, penetrating its 
exterior for the purpose. 

The transfiguration is the experience consequent 
upon the ability to see truly the nature of the Jesus 
or the mortal ; and it comes as the natural result in 
the fulfilling of the Law. 

The question asked by Jesus of His disciples elicits 
two answers of different nature ; and only by and 
through that perception and understanding which 
gives the second one can come the transfiguration 
recorded as following. 

Only by seeing clearly the inter-relation of the 
Old and New Testaments, by so tracing the Jesus 
of the New from His beginnings in the Old, can that 
second answer be given and the transfiguration 



86 4 CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

follow; for, as is constantly .revealed in a search of 
the Scriptures, this Jesus of the Gospels and of Paul 
is something more than a historical character merely. 

He is the fruit of that process which is stated in 
the Old Testament and followed to its conclusion in 
the New ; a process applicable to every one of us, 
which must be seen and consciously followed by 
every one of us, and we must bring forth as its prod- 
uct, through our conscious co-operation, this same 
fruit through which only the full manifestation of 
man's divine nature can come ; or every one of us 
must bring forth the Jesus as the medium or perfect 
person through which the Christ is wholly revealed. 

How to bring forth the Jesus and so make manifest 
the Christ, together with the signs by and through ■ 
which the Christ is recognized, is what is taught in the 
Bible for our individual guidance ; and^in this process 
of fulfilling the Law we come inevitably to the point 
where we are confronted by the question, " What 
am I ? " and upon the answer we are able to give to 
this question depends our own transfiguration ; which 
is the transfiguration or transformation of the son of 
man or the mortal through perception of its unity with 
the Son of God or the immortal. 

This transfiofuration or transformation has its coun- 
terpart in the Old Testament: for the record of \ 
each gospel, which is reiterated by the others, is an i 
epitome of the whole process outlined in the Old \ 
Testament ; and this counterpart is the Noah stage | 
therein, where old things pass away and all things ; 
become new. ' 

The son of man or the mortal, beginning with the ' 



i 



THE TRANSFIGURATION . 87 

Adam and ending with the Jesus, looks to others as 
these others do to themselves ; this son of man or 
person is the visible to mortal sense who is trans- 
formed when seen with spiritual sense ; hence this 
ti-ansfiguration cannot come till spiritual sense begins 
to take the place of mortal sense, or till we perceive 
instead of see ; perceive the invisible though seeing 
the visible, and understand that the invisible is 
more real or lasting than the visible. 

This is what is portrayed in the questioning of 
the disciples by Jesus. " He asked His disciples, 
saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, 
am ? And they said. Some say that thou art John 
the Baptist ; some, Elias ; and others, Jeremias or 
one of the prophets." This question asks the verdict 
of mortal sense, the natural sense, upon the mortal, 
upon person or the Son of man, as Jesus declares 
himself to be. 

This verdict is always the answer of belief ; for 
mortal sense cannot understand the nature of the 
Son of man ; it is too limited to compass it. Incap- 
able of this understanding which can alone give the 
true answer, it answers according to its own belief, and 
inevitably falls short of the truth, as any answer which 
is not from the unity of perception and understand- 
ing, must do. 

So Jesus asks first of His disciples " Whom do men 
say that I am ? Not you who have been instructed 
in My true nature so far as you have been able to 
receive that instruction; but others, all men who 
have not received this help, and who in consequence, 
hold the opinions which are the result of their mortal 



88 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

sense about Me ; " the result of seeing only the 
visible, discerning nothing of that invisible which is 
back of it and in unity with it. 

And the reply is the reply of opinion, of belief; con- 
sequently it varies; some believe one thing, some 
another and there is disagreement between them in 
consequence ; each will think he alone is right and all 
the others wrong. 

One says Jesus is John the Baptist, another that 
he is Elias, and so on. This result is repeated to-day. 
One denomination declares Him to be God in human 
form, another to be a man just as we are, only a good 
deal better, etc., etc., through all the many and differ- 
ing sects which make up Christendom. 

These are the answers of mortal sense only ; of be- 
liefs about Jesus which will have their day and come 
to an end ; for after them will come the true answer 
which shall supplant these, and then the last shall be 
first and the first shall be last. 

In this whole process from sense to soul, or from 
limited consciousness to all consciousness, mortal or 
limited sense pronounces first upon all in it ; the de- 
cision of perception and understanding comes after 
it and ever reverses its decision, because the invisible 
to mortal sense gradually becomes the only visible, 
shutting out the former visible through the overcom- 
ing of the only sense which sees it. As mortal or 
personal sense is overcome or grown beyond, all that 
we call mortal and material will disappear, for it will 
be swallowed up in transformation. 

Looking upon Simon Peter as the type of united 
perception and understanding, a capacity way be- 






THE TRANSFIGURATION, 89 

yond the range of mortal sense — for all the disciples 
of Jesus are types who are at one with Him as the 
chief, being those who have followed Him in the re- 
generation — we can see the significance of his answer 
and the equal significance of the question put by 
Jesus. 

It is not like the former " Whom do men say that 
J, the Son of Man, am ? but Whom say ye that 1 
amr' 

It is not addressed to mortal sense to elicit its re- 
sponse, but to those faculties which are beyond this ; 
to that sense which can see where the other is blind ; 
to that which can pierce the visible and discern the 
invisible ; to that for which visible and invisible are 
transposed, the visible to mortal sense being the 
invisible to it, while the invisible to mortal sense is 
its visible ; and the answer is one, not many ; it is the 
abstract truth, not beliefs about it. 

According to Matthew the answer is, " Thou art 
the Christ the son of the living God " ; to Mark, " Thou 
art the Christ " ; and to Luke, " The Christ of God." 

Compare this answer of Peter's with the others ; 
there is no room for doubt here ; no possibility of 
wrong decision. It is the answer of that knowledge 
which is wisdom instead of that worldly knowledge 
or belief which is foolishness with God, or incompat- 
ible with truth. 

It is this knowledge which establishes the true 
Church,' the Church of the Spirit, and upon this rock 
of united perception and understanding which gives 
it an eternal and unchanging foundation from which 
it cannot be moved. Any attempt to shift it to an- 



90 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

other ever has and ever will result in failure, in the 
downfall of that which it was sought to upbuild. 

And the keys of the kingdom of heaven are held 
in the keeping of this united perception and under- 
standing, not by mortal sense, which not only does 
not possess them but does not even know where to 
look for them, and contents itself with its own belief 
about what they are. 

This ability to discern the immortal back of the 
mortal, the invisible back of the visible, opens the 
way for the transfiguration or the transformation of 
the mortal to the immortal; but as an accomplished 
fact, it is the result of a process which leads to it. 

The records read — "And after six days Jesus 
taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bring- 
eth them up into an high mountain apart." 

Taken literally, this statement would seem to show 
a preference for these three disciples above the others; 
a species of favoritism inconsistent with the nature 
of that teacher and leader who declared one Father 
for all ; but, interpreted according to the one ruling 
principle of this book, the Bible, it shows that He 
took the only three who could ascend this mountain — 
or Peter as the type of united perception and under- 
standing, James as the type of realization, and John 
his brother, the type of impersonal love, without 
which realization cannot be. 

These, through higher development or increase 
under the leadership of the Jesus ; through growing 
nearer to Him or widening out to include more and 
more the truth of being, our eternal spiritual verity, 
so go with him into " an high mountain apart " from 



i 



THE TBANSFIGUBATION. 91 

lesser states of consciousness, and upon or in which 
the visible to mortal sense is lost and the visible to 
spiritual sense is found ;or the true nature of the son 
of man is seen or visible ; and this nature is spiritual 
because at one with the Son of God. 

This result, possible only to these, to the Peter, 
James, and John, because of the " six days " or degrees 
of progress to this possibility, point also to the reason 
why only these disciples were with Jesus at the 
raising of Jairus' daughter. He suffered no other 
man to follow him, because none less than these can 
do what they can as assistants in the manifestation 
of the Christ. 

Tracing the process which brings the Jesus or the 
perfected person, the Son of man, forth from its be- 
ginnings with the Adam, we follow it through Enos 
to the Noah stage where, by means of what is called 
the flood, the old is washed away and a new appears. 
All that was before the flood goes into the Ark with 
Noah and comes forth afterward, showing the pres- 
ervation of the kind on the earth." 

Everything which was before it is preserved by 
means of the Ark, so that after the flood the same 
kind is upon the earth as was there before ; proving 
that the kind was not evil, bad, wicked, for that 
which was so was washed away, while the kind con- 
tinued. 

Only a sense about this kind was destroyed by this 
flood which bore up the Ark and preserved all it con- 
tained ; that was the evil, the wrong, the wickedness 
that was destroyed. It was only the " imagination 
of man's heart " or belief consequent upon limited 



92 A CHICAGO BiBLE CLASS. 

sense that was done away with, and supplanted by 
understanding ; and this process always works a 
transformation in things seen because the sense 
which sees them is transformed. 

In this process from mortality to immortality the 
mortal is and must be transformed or transfigured ; 
and it is brought about only through the transforma- 
tion in the sense which sees it, this transformation 
coming just as Paul declares it, through a renewing. 
" And be ye therefore transformed through the re- 
newing of your mind." 

As mortal sense, the Adam-sense which sees only 
the mortal, the representative, the forms which are 
acted upon by that which is back of them, becomes 
transformed through renewing with spiritual sense — 
the sense which can discern the invisible that acts 
upon and through the representative — these forms of 
this kind is seen anew ; and it is transfigured through 
this transformation in the sense about it ; for when 
this comes, the kind is seen in the light instead of in 
the darkness, and its true nature which shows it to be 
in itself, senseless and inanimate, subject not ruler, 
and used only as a means to an end and that end 
divine is understood. 

Then the one who sees and understands knows 
that no more shall a flood destroy, for there is then 
nothing to be destroyed. The kind stands, but the 
wrong sense about it which made it seem what it was 
not, is gone. That only is destructible and has 
reached its end. 

The complement of this stage in Genesis, the 
transfiguration in the Gospels, portrays the same 



THE TBANSFIGUMATION. 93 

result. Through a renewing in sense which is pro- 
gressive, the disciples reach the transformation stage 
where the Jesus, the Son of man, is transfigured to 
them because seen with a higher sense ; seen on a 
mountain apart ; and this transfiguration of one 
includes the same of others ; includes transfiguration 
of all in this process from Adam to Jesus. 

The seeing him in accordance with what he rep- 
resents, instead of with mortal sense, includes the 
like seeing of all that precedes him and shows the 
continuity between them. Moses and Elias are seen 
also in this mountain apart ; or a new perception, un- 
derstanding and realization of what Moses and Elias 
are and what their relation to the son of man and 
the Son of God is the accompaniment of the trans- 
figuration of this son of man so that the Son of God is 
the only seen. 

Moses as the law-giver, the one who holds the rod 
of God in his hand by means of which the works are 
done, and Elias the restorer, who comes at this stage 
of transformation or transfiguration to restore all 
things or preserve the kind though the former sense 
about it disappears, have their place here and are in- 
cluded in what is seen by the Peter, James and John ; 
and the three tabernacles are but the reappearing or 
the transfiguration of the covenant made between 
God and Noah " for perpetual generations " ; that 
everlasting covenant that no more shall there be 
destruction, for there is no more to destroy. 

This transfiguration of the kind, of person, or of 
Jesus the Son of man, opens the ears to the voice of 
God. " A bright cloud overshadowed them : and 



94 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

behold a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye 
him." 

The unity instead of opposition between the mortal 
or person and God — unity through the immortal 
or Son of God, the only truly living being, is made 
manifest in this process of manifestation and is the 
accompaniment of transformation ; for when the 
mortal is seen to be in harmony with the One God 
and mortal sense is seen to be the only enmity 
between them, this is the place of transfiguration in 
which the kind is preserved because one with the 
immortal, the spiritual, the Son of God ; for " when 
they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man save 
Jesus only." 

The kind of which Jesus is the highest type or a 
kind after and according to Man, has its place in 
that universe which is Creation or is from the One 
Creator, as necessarily and lawfully as has Man or 
the spiritual ; for it is according to the spiritual so 
that this is made manifest through it. Were it not 
so, the spiritual would be without a medium for 
manifestation. 

Without the Jesus, the Christ could not be fully 
manifested ; and the unity and harmony between the 
spiritual and the representative of it or between 
that which is direct from Spirit — God and the kind 
according to it, is eternal ; so it is preserved through 
all the destroying which goes on in this process of 
manifestation ; for all that is destroyed are the im- 
pediments to such manifestation which is necessary 
to complete Creation ; and these impediments are 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 95 

the errors of mortal sense and the consequent evils 
to it, destroyed because destructible in their nature ; 
while the kind, the representative, is not destruct- 
ible, because there are no mistakes, no errors, no evils 
in Creation ; in that Universe which is the work of 
the One God through Man. 

''And as they came down from the mountain, 
Jesus charged tliem, saying, Tell the vision to no 
man until the Son of man be risen again from the 
dead." 

This transfiguration of the representative, the 
visible, or person, which comes in the process from 
expression of God to the manifestation, is an ex- 
perience in consciousness and so is individual ; hence 
it cannot be told, for it cannot be expressed in 
words ; neither can it be understood except it be 
accompanied by proof; and the proof must be 
the accompaniment of the capacity to get and 
hold it. 

The transformation of the Son of man to the Peter, 
James, and John individual to us, is a vision or an 
individual consciousness only ; and it takes the unity 
of these three to receive the vision while to these it 
is only " in an high mountain apart" ; or a conscious- 
ness mountain high, and as such distinct from that 
mortal sense consciousness, the natural state of the 
natural man which is as a valley — the valley of the 
shadow of death; — and away from which growth 
according to Law takes place. 

This growth is the passing through that valley and 
up the high mountain apart where all seen in the 
valley is transfigured. To say to others that there is 



96 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

no mortal man ; that the person seen to-day which we 
call man is but a figure which, in a degree, represents 
the true and real hidden by it, is useless ; for only the 
Peter, James, and John can see that truth ; to them 
only is the visible transfigured ; and for the majority, 
proof of what is called a life after death is demanded 
and alone can show them that the disappearance of 
the visible does not mean an end to living but is 
only a step in that process of transformation from 
glory to glory till transfiguration is complete and the 
Son of man is gone, the Son of God only remaining. 

This vision is no exceptional occurrence, native only 
to the days of Jesus and his disciples as historical per- 
sonages ; for the power of such visions, the capacity 
to see clearly, see through and beyond the veil of 
mortal sense, is inherent in us all, but unknown and 
undeveloped as yet in the mass. 

It becomes active only in those who are followers 
of Jesus in the regeneration ; in those for whom the 
actualities of mortal sense have lost seductiveness, and 
who with heart, soul, and mind turn to the Lord ; 
to the true Self which is in heaven, and so, turning, 
experience that transformation in consciousness which 
lifts them to that Self or transfigures them. 

Those for whom the mount of transfiguration begins 
to appear dimly in the distance are those who are 
open to receive the vision belonging to it, who are on 
the way to the finding of Christ through the growing 
recognition and realization that He is the Divine 
Nature individual to every one of us which is repre- 
sented by and manifested through, person. 

For those travelling in this way the Son of man, 



THE TBANSFIGUBATION, 97 

the mortal person, is transfigured because the bright- 
ness of the Christ shines through and beyond it. 

For them the veil of the temple is rent asunder 
and the immortal, deathless self stands forth. 

For them there are no evils, no errors in the great 
and grand universe of the eternal God. They will 
see that the mortal or person holds his own place 
therein equally with the immortal and that transfig- 
uration is his destiny. 

O ! you who do not stand in this position to-day, 
who do not yet see that you are gradually approach- 
ing this mount of transfiguration because it is hidden 
in the distance, do not see that you must ascend it ! 
Wait a little ! Your feet will yet reach its base. 

Allow the possibility that the clouds which now 
bound your horizon may be pushed farther away ; 
for the approach to this mountain is upward and as 
we go the horizon grows broader. 

All that now seems evil, error, a lie, will become so 
transformed in the light which shines ever on this 
mountain, however dark it be in the valley, as to be 
transfigured : and the voice of the One God will be 
heard out of the bright cloud which rests there, de- 
claring the divine nature of all that the limited sense 
would destroy as having no place in the divine whole. 

There the face of the mortal, of the son of man, 
shall shine as the sun and his raiment be white as the 
light ; for the darkness of mortal sense has passed 
from before him little by little ; and so he has been 
transformed, lifted higher till he has ascended above 
it to the light of God in which his divine nature is 
revealed as the all and the only. 



98 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 

Maek IV. 35-41. 

And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, 
Let us pass over unto the other side. 

And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him 
even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other 
little ships. 

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into 
the ship, so that it was now full. 

And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow : 
and they awake him, and say imto him. Master, carest thou not 
that we perish ? 

And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, 
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 

And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful ? how is it that 
ye have no faith ? 

And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What 
manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him ? 

Power is what mankind covets. In all countries, 
with all classes of people, in the several fields wherein 
these labor, power is sought after as the desirable, 
for which all sacrifices are made, every energy is 
bent. 

It is rarely a person is met, young or old, who is not 
ambitious ; and to whom the attainment of what he 
is striving after does not mean power. Possession 
of it and opportunity for wielding it are dear to every 
individual member of mankind whether they have 
grown to the recognition of the fact or not. 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 99 

We see this in the merest child equally with the 
full grown man. It is the manifestation of the 
same instinct, whether it be the child's impetuous 
effort to have its own way and conquer all that 
opposes it, or the nature man's strife for that place 
and position which shall enable him to hold others 
subject to himself and it, and in which he crushes 
whatever he cannot sweep to one side. 

It is a struggle for this result everywhere ; one 
that is individual and universal; and being so it 
must have a meaning ; for there is nothing made 
visible to us by means of humanity which has not a 
meaning and a reason for being. Why is there this 
universal instinct in mankind and toward what does 
it tend ? 

In this connection let us consider the experience 
of Jesus and his disciples recorded in the gospels as 
the " Stilling of the Tempest." Remembering that 
Jesus is the teacher; the instructor for those less 
than he ; the mediator between their ignorance and 
that knowledge which is wisdom ; through whom 
that ignorance is displaced by the wisdom in pro- 
portion as they are able to receive it, because he 
knows and they are but on the way to the knowing, 
we shall find a grand lesson which is applicable to 
ourselves individually. 

The power of mastery, or dominion over all things, 
belongs to man because it is a part of his nature. 
Because of what he is all things are subject to him in 
that he is greater than they, and the greater, by right, 
rules over the lesser. In man's development, this 
dominion or mastery, which is his by right of his 



100 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

being, becomes the conscious fact through attainment. 

We read in the first chapter of Genesis that God 
made man in his own image and said, " Let them have 
dominion " over all things ; and further, that man 
was to " subdue the earth." Seeing that generic man, 
as the image of God, or the infinite idea of the One 
Infinite Mind, is to become the actual man through 
development, we see that this power belonging to 
generic man must develop till it becomes the actual, 
the acting power ; and that the attainment of the 
self-consciousness which belongs to man, to that in- 
finite idea, reached through the developing process, 
must contain within it consciousness of this dominion, 
this mastery of all, through demonstration. 

This being a process from the least to the greatest, 
this conquest of all is in the ascending scale, from a 
little to more and from more to all. At first there is 
subjection to other things through ignorance of the 
inherent power to overcome and rule them ; and this 
state is typified by the Adam of Genesis. 

The consequent experience develop the power, and 
beyond the Adam stage it is coming more and more 
into the consciousness as an actual instead of the 
potential fact With us, as we see ourselves natu- 
rally to-day, with mankind, there is this instinct which 
impels us to gain power, and it is God implanted. 

It is the consequence of the nature of man as 
imaging or reflecting Omnipotence or All-power. But 
when we follow it blindly, led by our natural sense 
of things, it becomes a whip to scourge us with, 
for we reap the consequences of such following. 
Sooner or later we become dissatisfied with what we 



STILLING THE TEMPEST, 101 

have worked hard to win, because our work has been 
all in the visible and all for the visible. 

We have striven to gain that which seems outside 
of ourselves, and to enrich ourselves by such gaining. 
We have been governed by personal ambition, by the 
selfish desire to get and hold to ourselves that power 
which should enable us to make and keep others sub- 
ject to us. 

And there comes a time in this process by which 
the human consciousness is overruled by the divine ; 
when we must pass over unto the other side ; must 
work in and for the invisible instead of the visible to 
truly attain this dominioH over all things ; for it is 
not a dominion over all things ; without ourselves, 
merely ; it is a dominion over all within ourselves ; 
is a self-mastery which must be reached before we 
can know ourselves as God-like. 

" And the same day, when the even was come, he 
said unto them. Let us pass over unto the other 
side." 

We, naturally, in this state of self-consciousness as 
Adams, believe ourselves to be subject to disease, to 
suffering both mental and physical, to unhappiness, 
grief and death. We are servants to whom we yield 
ourselves servants to obey ; and all the while we are 
so subject, this power of dominion over what we 
seem subject to, is ours to use if we only knew it. 

But we have to pass over to the other side to find 
it, for it does not lie in the without ; only in the with- 
in. So we must go there for it, find and use it, in 
order to demonstrate the fact that we have it ; in 
order to prove to ourselves that within the nature 



102 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

of man is the power to subdue all things unto itself. 
So long as we look to externals for the means of 
overcoming that which seemingly causes our suffering, 
so long we look in vain, for as that cause is within 
ourselves the means is there also. 

Believing disease, sorrow, and death to be some- 
thing entirely separate from ourselves, believing that 
they come to us and we are powerless to resist them, 
we look around us for the means of overcoming and 
destroying them ; and expect to find these means as 
being visible and tangible like the things we seek to 
destroy. 

Not till we have sought in vain, not till we have 
tried this and tried that, which, being external to and 
so seemingly separate from ourselves, appears to have 
an inherent virtue and power, do we give it all up, 
discouraged by our failures to accomplish what we 
are after and, almost in despair, pass over to the 
other side. 

When we are first told that these things which we 
fear and shrink from, which we seek to be rid of, can 
never disappear for us till we let go our hold upon 
them, because they are nothing but the out-pictur- 
ing of our own sense of things, we are amazed and 
say, " Why, what can I do ? " 

And when we are told " Find yourself ! Find your 
true being, know your own power and use it to the 
destruction of this vou fear and that you need not 
fear for you are greater than it ! " we are first amazed. 
But when spiritual perception is awakened in us, 
when we begin to see with it instead of with the nat- 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 103 

ural sense, we see that this must be so, whether it is 
the fact to our consciousness or not. 

And when we so see we are ready to take ship for 
the other side and ready and glad to carry the divine 
teacher, who so only is known to us, with us. This 
teacher, this higher consciousness than our present 
one, this knower of the truth of being who is unrec- 
ognized and condemned by this natural sense of be- 
ing, and who always speaks that truth to us, is ready 
and waiting to go with us. And many others who 
like ourselves cannot find what they seek, seeing our 
example, will bear us company. 

''And when they had sent away the multitude, 
they took him even as he was in the ship. And there 
were also with him other little ships." 

When we take ship to go to the other side of this 
we see around us, when we turn away from the 
visible and seek to penetrate the invisible, seek to 
find and bring forth from it that truth which we have 
as yet failed to find, we are apt to encounter storms 
which only this teacher, this master, can quiet and 
control. But he is in the ship with us and will 
never fail us. 

" And there arose a great storm of wind, and the 
waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full." 

Do we not find that to declare a thing as true, 
is to bring upon us the necessity of proving it so ? 
" According to thy word be it unto thee." 

When through spiritual perception we see that 
what we have feared is not what we have believed it 
to be ; when we so see that we are not what we have 
believed ourselves to be, are not subjects by nature 



104 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

but rulers, we declare this truth. We declare against 
our former views, our beliefs, and put them from us 
by taking ship and leaving them. 

By so declaring we have left the land we formerly 
had under our feet, left that which was solid as long 
as we staid by it, and are on that which moves under 
us as we move over it on our way to find that rock 
which is immovable and from which we cannot be 
moved; the rock of proof through demonstration, 
that what we declare is true. 

Between these two points is the storm, the winds 
and waves, the tempest which it is hard to make our 
way through ; and our ship fills in the tumult and 
threatens to carry us below instead of over to the 
farther shore. Before we have gained the proof 
through demonstration, is the dangerous time for us. 
After we have gained it, we cannot be moved. De- 
claring the truth, the next step is to prove it ; and 
between these two is the period when we fear, we 
know not what, even though we have declared that 
there is nothing to fear. 

When our ship is full, when we can bear no more 
and can no longer see our way, we call upon this 
teacher which spiritual perception reveals to us, this 
one who knows, this higher self or consciousness which 
is calm and serene, knowing nothing of the storm 
which rages below his abiding place. Recognizing 
him as " Master " we call upon him as such and he 
displaces and puts out the storm and tempest with 
his own calm and peace. 

" And he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep 
upon a pillow ; and they awakened him and say unto 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 106 

him, Master, carest thou not that we perish ? And 
he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea. 
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was 
a great calm." 

This storm and tempest lies between our effort to 
establish dominion in the without as that which is 
separate and apart from ourselves, and our failure to 
do so, and the successful effort to establish it through 
self-dominion ; through mastery of ourselves first, and 
so mastery of all we see or are conscious of as outside 
ourselves. 

It portrays the change from sense-consciousness 
to soul-consciousness through making the passage 
between the two. The only way to overcome sin, sick- 
ness, and death, with all that these include, is to turn 
from them, turn our backs upon them and set our 
faces toward the other side, work our way to that 
farther shore. 

The tempest we encounter on the way is appalling 
for us, we are seemingly in danger of shipwreck. On 
every side something springs up to oppose us, winds 
blow from all the four quarters at once ; and while 
we feel that we cannot put back to the land we have 
turned away from in order to pass over to the other 
side, and while we desire most earnestly to reach 
that toward which we have set our faces, it seems, 
when this tempest rages around us, as if we should 
die, should be overcome before we can reach it. 

But the master is in the same boat with us, who 
careth that not one of these little ones should perish. 
Is in the hinder part of the boat, out of sight and 
unnoticed, till our needs impel us to call upon him ; 



106 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

but then he answers, proves himself the present help 
in time of trouble and all that we could not still, is 
quiet at his word because it is the word of command, 
the word of power spoken with authority. 

At first we forget all about the Master ; forget he 
is with us even unto the end. And we try to do for 
ourselves what we cannot accomplish because of our 
fear. It is human to fear; it is divine to rule all that 
the human fears. And this whole process is the ex- 
perience of the human consciousness on its way to 
control by the divine consciousness. And this 
divine is ever with us, as it is ever master of the 
human. 

Power in the world, power over men and things, 
that which men are ambitious for and strive to gain, 
from what are called the lowest to the highest walks 
of life, must sometime be seen as worthless, not worth 
striving for beside that other power, that self-mastery 
which must be won for man to prove his own God- 
nature. 

The whole aim and end of creation being the 
manifestation of the One God through man by means 
of man's self-consciousness, the divine Omnipotence 
or All-power can only so be manifest. And man 
being the sum of creation, the whole which contains 
all the parts, ruling over himself, ruling over what he 
is, is ruling over all things. 

Dominion over all is self-dominion, and this is the 
power which belongs to man as God's representative ; 
is the power which proves the nature of Omnipotence. 

But the mighty power and its result, this self-do- 
minion through self-mastery, which makes all things 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 107 

subject unto us, has little value to the worldly sense 
which strives ever after the other, through ignorance 
of the fact that only through one's self, only through 
mastery established there, can there be mastery of the 
without. 

We look with admiration and envy at the man who 
has conquered a place in the world, and who is known 
far and wide through his achievements, be these 
financial, historical or scientific. The one who is 
quietly working for self -conquest, for rulership over 
every impulse and prompting of the human conscious- 
ness that he may see and know and make manifest 
the divine nature of man and its inherent power over 
the human to raise that to itself, is unseen and un- 
known, receives none of that applause and admiration 
lavished upon the others. 

He treads his lonely way unnoticed, his only re- 
ward the growing conscious divinity within him, its 
voice the only encouraging tone he hears, its " well 
done ! " the only thing he strives for, stepping one 
side and allowing those who are pressing forward 
after worldly honors and recognition to go by him 
without a pang. 

Worldly ambition must and only can be gratified 
in this three score years and ten. Self-dominion is 
for eternity. 

Those who work for the first, push and jostle each 
other, each striving for himself alone regardless of 
the rest, using them as stepping-stones for climbing 
higher, even if they are crushed and ground to powder 
under the foot placed upon them. 

Those who seek to attain the other, help their fel- 



108 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

low men to the same end ; are never too intent upon 
their own achievements to pass them by when a help- 
ing hand and a kindly word will cheer them on in 
the same journey. For such realize that we are all in 
the same boat, that all mankind is in the same ship 
bound for the other side of this sense- world with its 
empty honors, and that we owe each other recognition 
and brotherly love. 

There is nothing like perception of the necessity 
of passing over to the other side and of the fact that 
all mankind as well as ourselves must make this pas- 
sage, to make us kind and helpful instead of selfishly 
bent upon attaining our own individual ends. While 
working out our own salvation from the sense which 
governs human consciousness till the divine sense is 
awakened and active, working to the overcoming of 
the consequences of that sense as leader, we can point 
out this way of salvation to others and help them to 
the same victory both by word and example. 

When we realize that the master is ever with us, 
when through becoming disciples of this master we 
take him with us, even as he is, without waiting to 
know him better, we are never without help in time 
of need. 

Consciousness of our true nature and being is ever 
the master of our sense of being, and rebuker of the 
fears which belong to it ; that knows that there is 
nothing to fear ; that man by divine right or inherit- 
ance is above all less than he, and that dominion 
over all belongs to him. 

The New Testament is full of instructions as to 
how to take ship for the other side as well as em- 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. 109 

phatic in the declaration of its necessity. " The king- 
dom of God is within you, and he who will may enter 
in." 

The kingdom of the world is what we see as with- 
out us, and it is there that we first strive for power. 
Well indeed is it for us that what we so gain proves 
unsatisfactory. Only as we grow, rise through expe- 
rience, do we too say " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 

To rule in the world according to the natural sense 
of power is to be the veriest servant, because servants 
to our fears and beliefs, in bondage to them and so 
to the suffering consequent upon them. So, we seek 
to lay up our treasures in the world because our 
hearts are there, and so we are constantly robbed 
and left the poorest of the poor. But when we turn 
to that other kingdom, the eternal which fadeth not 
away ; when we seek to lay up our treasures there 
and to so enter into it that we may rule from thence 
over all that before we seemed subject to, we gain 
those victories which prove our right to enter in and 
to rule ; prove our ability so to do as well. 

Our old belief that we have got to die before experi- 
encing better conditions and being able to manifest 
man's right to rule over all things, is destroyed by 
the perception and understanding that living is con- 
tinuous, and that as we have, some time or other, to 
enter into this kingdom of God and reign therein, 
have to establish that self-mastery which is dominion 
over all things, we might as well begin to do it now ; 
might as well take ship at once for this other side. 

And plenty of opportunity is ready to our hand. 
We shall have all we can do to restrain and conquer 



110 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

our own selfish impulses and desires, our own fears 
and weaknesses, which accompany the mortal sense of 
ourselves and things. And when we resolve to do 
this, it seems as if these piled themselves mountain 
high before us ; as if the winds and the waves would 
swamp us and we should never get to land. 

It is comparatively easy to conquer some things in 
the world. It is not so easy to master something in 
ourselves ; and yet it can be done. It is not only 
the possible but the imperative for every one of us. 
" He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that 
taketh a city." We often hear it said, "Control 
yourself or you are not fit to control others." 

If we excuse ourselves by saying " I know I ought 
not to think or do so and so, but I cannot help it ; " 
how can we righteously condemn others who urge the 
same excuse when they do something which we would 
not do ? They cannot help what they do and we 
cannot help what we do, and neither one is a whit 
above the other though the deeds done be different. 

But when we see that all that we call sin, sickness 
and death, sorrow and misery in the world, will last 
for us till we overcome in ourselves that sense which 
includes these as its consequences, then, if we are 
wise, we shall set ourselves to the overcoming of this 
sense; to the growing beyond it and its results. 
This also is taking boat for the other side because it 
is working in the consciousness instead of in and with 
the things we are conscious of ; working in the within 
instead of the without. 

It is dealing with the invisible cause instead of with 
the visible effect; and no matter what we encounter 



STILLING THE TEMPEST. Ill 

in this effort and work, we shall h^ successful if we 
persist, because there is ever that with us which helps 
us to victory. 

So long as we have a sense of suffering so long we 
suffer. So long as we believe ourselves subject to 
suffering instead of ruler over it, so long will we ex- 
perience the results of our subjection. The power of 
mastery over these, which is asleep with us, must be 
awakened, and it will then do its own work. 

And it is awakened through knowledge ; through 
gaining a higher sense of ourselves, of what we are 
and the relation of what we see to ourselves ; a knowl- 
edge which is understanding that our individual be- 
ing is ever governed by its principle and that in con- 
sequence all power is ours in heaven and on earth if 
only we can see, grasp and use it to its own ends, so 
proving what we are. 

Nothing can arise which cannot be conquered. 
No storm so violent but that it can be allayed by 
the word of conscious power. No tempest which 
will not yield to the " Peace, be still," spoken with 
authority. 

Only those alive to this necessity ; only those who 
are striving for the right kind of power, know what 
this "great calm "is which follows the command. 
It is that silence after the storm in which our strength 
for further victories is renewed while the incense of 
the soul rises on high in thankfulness for what has 
been attained. 

In this silence, this great calm, we know whereof 
we speak. Within our own consciousness, are those 
revelations which are an opening of the heavens unto 



112 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

US, which are for ourselves alone and which raise us 
above the world into that atmosphere which is not 
of the world, where we are quickened by the spirit 
which dwells there to the doing of more of the 
Father's work. We are so helped thereto, till it is 
finished and also can say " I have overcome the 
world." 

Ah ! Not power in, but power over the world 
through self-mastery is what the disciple strives after. 
And striving he attains. Attains little by little so 
that those who know nothing of this indwelling power 
to so achieve, seeing him and his conquered calm 
after the storm which is common to us all, say 
" What manner of man is this ? " 

For such a one is not conformed to this world. 
He is one alone, but mighty in his loneliness. 

Whoever can conquer himself, can conquer the 
world. Nothing in or of it can successfully oppose 
him. Victory over all sense of sin, sickness, and 
death, is the victory over them. And this is the 
work done while crossing to the other side. Every 
step in it but brings out the master more and more, 
putting out the servant the while. 

Mastery over our own sense of ourselves and of all 
things so that it shall be ever in conscious accord 
with their truth, is that work which, when finished, 
brings us face to face with that which is Godlike 
only, all human likeness being left behind on the way. 

Then is fulfilled for us the prophecy of the serpent 
in the garden, the declaration of that wisdom which 
is endless and unceasing, " Ye shall be as gods, know- 
ing all." 



STILLING THE TEMPEST: 113 

Through holding this ultimate as our ideal, con- 
tent with nothing less, pressing forward to it un- 
ceasingly, letting go worldly ambition and strife for 
power that we may work for tliat which is above 
them, that which is eternal where they are temporal, 
we may dwell ever in the calm though around us rages 
the storm, even as Jesus in the boat was unconscious 
of the wind and waves which so frightened those 
with him. 

We make our own world and dwell in it. We 
can have as ours the great calm while those beside 
us have the wind and the storm. And better yet, 
we can show them how to have the calm for them- 
selves by speaking with authority and rebuking that 
which they fear, if our work has brought us to that 
conscious power which so speaks the all-powerful 
word. 

All things obey us when we obey the teachings of 
the master within ; and when these teachings are 
audible to us through the opening of our ears to hear 
them, when we listen to and are governed by that 
higher consciousness than this mortal state, we so, 
little by little, leave this, with the evils it seems to 
contain, and rise to that higher ; dwelling therein as 
in a great calm which those winds and waves raging 
below are powerless to affect. 

Do we so draw upon us the unfavorable comment 
of that sense which condemns because it cannot 
understand ? The sense which is of the world, 
worldly? What of it? It is not so much as a peb- 
ble in our pathway unless we make it more. It can- 
not hinder our advance for one instant unless we 

8 



114 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

allow it to. " He that denyeth not himself and 
taketh up his cross daily and followeth after me, is 
not worthy of me." 

We are not worthy of this mastery, this all-power, 
if we are not ready and willing to pay its price 
counting it all nothing, whatever it may be, so that 
we at last attain ; so that we, on the way, help others 
who are battling with the winds and waves and cry- 
ing out for help, bringing for them also some of that 
great calm in which we repose as in the arms of 
the Infinite. 

Paying the price gladly, willingly; helping our 
fellow-men as gladly, as willingly, we, some time, 
shall say, " I have overcome. And now, O Father, 
glorify thou me." 



THE PASSOVEB, 115 



THE PASSOVER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

EXODUS XI. 3-13; 35-36. 

Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth 
day of this month they shall take to tliem every man a lamb, 
according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house : 

And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his 
neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of 
the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your 
count for the lamb. 

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year : 
ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats : 

And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same 
month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall 
kill it in the evening. 

And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side 
posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they 
shall eat it. 

And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and 
unleavened bread ; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 

Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with 
fire ; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. 

And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and 
that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall bum with 
fire. 

And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on 
your feet, and your staff in your hand ; ye shall eat it in haste : it is 
the Lord's passover. 

For I will pass though the land of Egypt this night, and will 
smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; 
and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment : I am 
the Lord 

And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses 



116 A cmCAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

where ye are : and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and 
the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the 
land of Egypt. . . . 

And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses ; 
and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels 
of gold, and raiment : 

And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the 
Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they 
required : and they spoiled the Egyptians. 

In the book of Exodus we find recorded, as a part 
of the experience of the children of Israel in Egypt, 
what is called the Lord's passover. We find refer- 
ence to it throughout the old Testament, and all four 
of the Gospels record the keeping of the feast of the 
passover at Jerusalem. 

There must be a special and great significance to 
this rite above and beyond its traditional value as a 
commemorative custom of the Jews ; a significance 
found only through perception of the spirit of the 
Bible as the Book of Testimony ; one not seen by 
those who read only its letter. 

The observance of the rite, as recorded of Jesus 
and his disciples, means something far beyond 
conformity to a custom. It has a meaning as the 
fulfillment of prophecy, a meaning in accord with the 
nature of the Jesus, a significance which reveals 
the higher meaning of the death, resurrection and 
ascension recorded of him ; a higher than the one 
usually attributed to these. 

If we can perceive that there is perfect harmony be- 
tween the Old and New Testaments in their essential 
natures ; that these Old and New Testaments are in 
perfect accord the one with the other, as the letter 



THE PASSOVER. 117 

and the spirit ever are if taken together instead of 
being divorced from each other, we must admit that 
the significance of the passover is a unity between 
its meaning in the Old and its meaning in the New 
Testaments. 

Though a custom among the Jews to this day, 
there must be an underlying meaning which prompted 
and has preserved the custom. To get this meaning 
it is necessary to find the underlying principle of 
the Bible and follow it in all attempts at interpreta- 
tion. 

This found, and it is outlined in Genesis, it 
reveals the meaning of the book of Exodus and the 
following books ascribed to Moses as an illustration 
of the experiences of mankind from the time when 
its members become the children of Israel instead of 
the children of Adam ; when we are capable of being 
led by spiritual perception instead of by the mortal 
sense natural to us, which so makes us the chosen 
people. 

This marks the period when deliverance is possible 
for us ; deliverance from the errors and evils con- 
sequent upon the limitations of that sense, possible 
because of the seeing through its actualities to their 
nature and meaning, this perception being developed 
through experience and so becoming the deliverer 
from its bondage, or the Moses who leads us out of 
Egypt. 

This Egypt of Exodus is the type of the natural 
condition of the natural man ; of the children of Adam 
or of the state of consciousness which is named 
Adam ; and its Pharaoh is the mortal or limited sense 



118 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

which rules in that state of consciousness naturally ; 
or in Egypt. 

The children of Israel are those who have cried 
out by reason of their bondage ; who have grown to 
perceive that the government of our consciousness 
by that sense is bondage ; and that deliverance from 
it must come through deliverance from that mortal 
sense, or from Pharaoh. 

This perception is the leader who, followed, shall 
lead them out of Egypt, out of the state of con- 
sciousness which is Egypt and beyond the power of 
its Pharaoh to enslave ; is the Moses thus sent unto 
them who leads them into that wilderness which lies 
between this mortal-sense state of consciousness and 
the higher state of understanding the truth of our 
being, understanding its reality to be the invisible 
instead of the visible, who leads them successfully 
through it, through all the dangers and temptations 
encountered there, to where the promised land or this 
higher consciousness is in sight ; and from which point 
the Joshua or understanding must lead them to take 
possession of it. 

All this experience recorded of the children of Israel 
in Egypt is typical of our own experience, individu- 
ally and collectively, by and through which we wake 
up to the fact of our divine inheritance ; to the per- 
ception that the sufferings, the hard tasks, the bond- 
age which is our portion as subjects of the Pharaoh 
or mortal sense, need not be indefinitely continued 
because there is a way out ; a way which is the nat- 
ural and sure result of the Cause of our being ; one 
in accordance with the nature of God and of Man 



THE PASSOVEB. 119 

which only needs to be found and followed to bring 
us to freedom from such experience ; which freedom 
belongs to us as our inheritance or because of what 
we are by nature. 

The slavery is the consequence of what we seem ; 
the freedom the result of what we are ; and we have 
to leave the one to have the other ; for we cannot be 
in a condition of servitude and be free from it at the 
same time ; so there must be an exodus, a going out 
of the one to possess the other ; to enter the land 
flowing with the milk and honey of freedom from 
servitude or slavery under mortal sense. 

Our own cry for deliverance, wrung from us by our 
pangs and pains, brings our Moses or deliverer to us, 
the truly sent of God or messenger of that truth 
which leads us out and on to possession of the 
knowledge of it. Our experience under Pharaoh de- 
velopes that spiritual perception which makes us the 
people chosen to know the truth which makes free ; 
and we gain this freedom only by following this leader 
where he leads, however much our not yet overcome 
mortal sense — though we have repudiated its author- 
ity to rule — fails to see the need or the way. 

While still in Egypt there is a dividing line between 
the children of Israel and the subjects of Pharaoh ; 
between those led by spiritual perception and those 
ruled by mortal sense without it, as is shown in the 
later plagues which come upon Pharaoh's subjects 
only, the children of Israel being passed over by them. 

As the text reads, " I will put a division between 
my people and thy people ; to-morrow shall this sign 
be." 



120 A CHICAGO BIBLi: CLASS. 

Our growth through our experience — the servitude 
in Egypt to where we begin to see its nature and mean- 
ing; to where our higher nature and the necessity 
for its realization and so its manifestation opens to us, 
makes a dividing line between this position and the 
old one ; between those declaring against the bond- 
age of Pharaoh and those still passively subject to it ; 
and in consequence, while both have experience or 
both are yet dwellers in the land, that belonging to 
those on the farther side of this dividing line is not 
what it is to those who have not yet reached it. 

It is a plague to those who are yet subject to Pha- 
raoh, to mortal sense ; who are ruled by it ; but the 
others, the children of Israel, are free from the plague, 
or from the plaguing, the painful element in experi- 
ence which is the consequence of passive submission to 
Pharaoh ; because in proportion to their perception 
of its nature do they perceive its powerlessness to 
dominate them and their own inherent ability to rule 
over it. 

Hence, though the plagues come upon the land, to 
this portion of the dwellers in the land there is no 
plague ; no suffering ; but that which is suffering to 
the subjects of Pharaoh is the means for deliverance 
of the children of Israel from the land ; the means of 
their coming out of it under the guidance of Moses — 
spiritual perception ; the means of their being sent 
out of it in great haste. 

All the discontent and pain, the disappointment 
and suffering which is part of our experience in Egypt 
in this state of consciousness where mortal sense is 
the natural ruler, is a means of driving us out of it 



THE PASSOVEB. 121 

and out of the reach of that bondage which can only 
be maintained in it ; and when we have experienced 
enough our Moses will be with us to show us the way 
through that wilderness which lies between the state 
of bondage and established freedom from it. Every 
one of us is driven out of Egypt with a strong hand, 
yet another is held out to point the new way and lead 
us on in it. 

We are always led as well as driven ; led while 
we are being driven. Experience is the strong hand 
which drives us out of our slavery ; but the hand of 
the Lord is over us all the while and leads us on. The 
being driven is only the preparation for our being led ; 
and the time is sure to come when we see that our 
driving out of Egypt with a strong hand even though 
it were into a wilderness where he could not see our 
way, was only that leading of the Lord; only that 
manifestation of the nature of man which shows his 
natural power of dominion over all and which has 
brought us to perception of and desire to reach and 
hold that dominion. 

This dividing line between the two classes of 
dwellers in Egypt — those yet belonging to it and 
those ready to go out of it, — causes those who are 
ready to be passed over by the destroying angel who 
destroys only for the Egyptians. If we destroy for 
ourselves we need no destroying angel to do it for us. 
Our ignorance of what we are and what we are des- 
tined to become must be destroyed, even to the tak- 
ing from us all that is dearest and the most closely 
held to. 

Our mortal sense of all things without exception, 



122 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

even of ourselves, must be displaced by the true 
sense of them or with perception of the nature of all 
instead of merely the appearance ; and this change 
is brought about by the destruction of whatever pre- 
vents us from so seeing, even to our first-born ; for 
the first-born to every one of us is the product of 
mortal or the natural sense, and so has to be de- 
stroyed ; for as that sense cannot discern the things 
of the Spirit and as those only are eternal, its deci- 
sions, its products or results, must be brought to an 
end, and the beyond of them seen and accepted 
instead. 

The first-born of the Egyptians being the natural 
product, the conception or son of mortal sense, it 
must be slain by the destroying angel ; but the first 
born or the conception of the children of Israel, even 
to their cattle and all belonging to them, is saved 
from this destruction through their willing following 
of spiritual perception and revolt from the dominion 
of mortal sense ; because as the result of perception 
instead of sense, it is true. 

When we truly perceive instead of mortally see, all 
things are saved from destruction ; for truth is the 
universal Saviour ; and all that is true stands, passed 
over by that destroying angel which removes all not 
fitted by its nature to survive. 

Whatever is true is eternal ; whatever is contrary 
to truth is destructible ; and the natural mortal-sense 
conception about ourselves and all things contrary 
to the truth of ourselves and of all things, or con- 
trary to the nature of them : consequently it must go ; 
must come to an end ; while the conception of spirit- 



THE PASSOVER. 123 

ual perception being in accord with that nature, with 
the abstract truth, though but in the least degree, is 
safe and secure; the destroying angel passing over 
it, because it is eternal, sustained by that with which 
it is in harmony. The children of Israel slay this 
mortal first-born for themselves ; the Egyptians must 
have it slain for them. 

Through their own slaying they have a first-born 
which cannot be slain ; which is indestructible and so 
by its nature compels the passing over it by the an- 
gel which destroys for the Egyptians. Whatever we 
hold to-day which is contrary to abstract truth must 
come to an end for us ; and it will be in one of two 
ways ; slain for us by the destroying angel of expe- 
rience — for there will not be a house in which there is 
not one dead — or slain by and for ourselves through 
obedience to the command of the Lord through 
Moses, through our perception of that abstract truth 
which demands this sacrifice of all that is not in ac- 
cordance with itself. As the Egyptian we suffer ; 
as the child of Israel we triumph. 

The children of Israel offer proof of what they 
have done by the blood upon the door-post. They 
slay " a lamb which is without blemish, a male of 
the first year " ; " the whole assembly of the congre- 
gation of Israel " kill it. 

Here we have the counterpart of the sacrifice to 
the Lord or the truth of being, offered by Abel in 
Genesis which was " a firstling of the flock " and 
which was acceptable unto the Lord, or in accord 
with truth ; and the whole congregation or all the 
children of Israel, without exception, must make 



124 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

this sacrifice to be passed over by that which causes 
the Egyptians to suffer. 

The first-born of mortal sense being contrary to 
the truth of being as the natural mistake or error 
consequent upon limitations of that sense, it is sus- 
tained by belief only, not by truth. Belief that it is 
true but not the truth itself is the life or blood 
thereof ; and consequently as this first-born must be 
slain one way or the other, by the children of Israel 
for themselves or for the Egyptians by the destroying 
angel, this blood which is its life must be shed. 

The belief in it as the truth must be given up ; and 
this is shedding the blood of the lamb offered for 
sacrifice ; and the proof that the children of Israel 
have slain their first-born is shown by the blood upon 
the door-post ; so the destroying angel passes them 
by, for his work is already done with them ; but 
where there is not this mark of blood, he slays. 

" Without the shedding of blood there is no remis- 
sion of sins " the Bible declares ; and how clearly 
this truth is seen when we see what this first-born is 
and why it must be slain ; for till its blood is shed, 
till that belief in it and about it which is its life is 
given up, it cannot make way for that which is 
eternal to take its place ; for that which is in accord 
with truth and so is a perception of truth. 

Till mere belief is given up to make room for some- 
thing higher, the children of Israel cannot be delivered 
out of the bondage of mortal sense ; or there can be 
no remission of sins ; no escape from the consequences 
of belief which are the harder and harder tasks 
imposed upon them by the task-masters ; no escape 



THE PA880VEB. 125 

from the mistakes and errors which result from the 
rulership of mortal sense and which have to be worked 
out through suffering till this first-born is slain. 

This is the blood atonement which begins to be 
made at this stage of the process that leads to com- 
plete and perfect self-consciousness, and which must 
be full before that process is finished. 

It is through this constant shedding of the blood 
of belief, that those who offer this sacrifice are passed 
over by that which afflicts the others who do not ; 
through this act on their own part their sins are taken 
from them, or remitted unto them, through their 
own putting them from them. All the errors con- 
sequent upon the nature of mortal sense; all the 
results of natural ignorance which that sense can 
never conquer, are but from us as children of Israel 
in this journey from what we seem to what we are, 
through our own shedding of blood without which 
there can be no remission of these sins ; without which 
they accompany us till they are destroyed through 
suffering or by the destroying angel. 

The door of a house is the way out of it ; if one 
would leave the house he goes out through the door, 
hence the command to the children of Israel to mark 
the two side posts and the upper door-post of their 
houses with this blood. This mark is all around 
the door or the way out of the house, yet would not 
be there did they not obey the command to slay and 
put it there. It is the mark of what they have done, 
the proof of obedience to spiritual perception instead 
of mortal sense ; the sign that the destroying angel 
has no work to do for them as its work is already 



126 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

done and they know their way out of bondage. 

To leave the land of Egypt they must leave their 
houses or dwelling places in it ; must go out of the 
door ; and when their doors are so marked, they go 
out to freedom through blood ; through this blood so 
shed for the remission of their sins by which they 
make atonement for those sins or errors and take up 
their journey to the promised land as a chosen people, 
so chosen from out those who are not yet ready to 
travel the same road, and are led by the Moses to that 
which is for them, when they have reached it, in 
accordance with the promise of God, to Abraham ; in 
accordance with the nature of God whicii is unchange- 
able and sure, and which is ever coming forth to 
manifestation when we travel in the way of 
manifestation instead of in the road contrary to it. 
Perception and recognition of this unchangeable 
nature of God and of the surety of its manifestation 
is the covenant between God and mankind which 
will be kept. 

When we go forward in that straight and narrow 
way recognizing that our leader, our Moses, is 
instructed by the Lord instead of by mortal sense ; 
taught by the truth of being itself through perception 
of and communion with it, instead of by Pharaoh, 
and who so withstands Pharaoh and his commands, he 
leads us safely into and through the wilderness ; 
through all the bewilderment consequent upon this 
change of rulers. 

" When I see the blood I will pass over you, and 
the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when 
I smite the land of Egypt." How many are proving 



THE PASSOVER. 127 

the truth symbolically expressed in this statement, 
to-day ? It is capable of proof, but it must be in- 
dividually gained. 

It is possible for every one of us to prove that that 
which plagues the Egyptians does not plague us ; that 
that which causes those held in bondage of mortal 
sense to suffer does not have that effect upon us ; that 
where they submit to suffering ignorantly through 
their ignorance and fear, we can so rule our con- 
sciousness through repudiating that slavery as to 
determine what experience, in what we call this 
world shall be to us ; and so can cause it to lose that 
element of suffering through domination of it. 

My neighbor may lose all his possessions and 
suffer in consequence from his loss ; I may lose all 
mine and not suffer a moment because I have no 
sense of loss, having a consciousness of far richer 
possessions which cannot be taken away ; and this 
is the difference between an Egyptian and a child of 
Israel. 

The one is subject to experience, feels all its thorns 
and thistles and suffers accordingly ; the other rules 
over it, consequently over the suffering which it 
holds for the other ; therefore plucks out the thorns 
which rankle till they are so plucked out. Experience 
opens the way of salvation for mankind, but every 
individual member of mankind has to find this out 
when this way is discerned. 

A lamb for every house must be offered up ; its 
blood must be upon all the doors tlirough which pass 
out those who would escape from bondage to freedom. 
And its flesh must be eaten with unleavened bread, 



128 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

and even with bitter herbs. It must be consumed;! 
there must be nothing of it left ; the sacrifice must be 
complete and entire. 

This first born of mortal sense which the children 
of Israel slay for themselves must be entirely done 
away with ; no part of it can remain ; it must be 
entirely overcome, put out of the consciousness as the 
truth of our being, and this eating of its flesh, consum-j 
ing it entirely is the only way we can be saved; forj 
that mortal-sense conception must disappear utterly. 

So this lamb slain by the children of Israel, through 
their eating it, is the necessary food for the beginning 
of their journey, sustaining them in their flight out 
of Egypt, when eaten with unleavened bread. It is 
the necessary preparation for what is before them. 

Leavened bread would have Egyptian leaven in it ; 
have that belonging to the land, and the children of 
Israel cannot carry forth such ; can take with them 
only their own, not that which is like Egypt in its 
nature. So they must eat this lamb, make the sacri- 
fice complete or leave none of it in Egypt, and eat it 
with unleavened instead of leavened bread. 

At first thought it might seem that the borrowing 
of the ornaments of the Egyptians was contrary to 
this fact or necessity ; but gold and silver are not made 
in Egypt are not the leaven of Egj-pt, are not made at 
all, being by their nature imperishable ; and what is 
of this nature will go out of the darkness into the 
light ; go out of Egypt, being only an ornament 
therein, when carried out by those who are escaping 
from its bondage ; and so the children of Israel will 
spoil the Egyptians because such ornaments will find 



THE PASSOVEB. 129 

their way to those who can understand them and to 
be carried out of the land of darkness. 

These, as representatives of all that is true and 
good in Egypt — in this state of consciousness which 
is Egypt — will be redeemed from the bondage of 
Egypt ; from the ignorance of their true nature ; and 
by means of those who are coming out from it and 
who bring these with them. The exodus from Egypt 
is the exodus of all not having the Egyptian nature ; 
and all which so comes out of bondage will find its 
way to that freedom which makes such servitude 
impossible. 

This sacrifice is eaten or consumed with unleavened 
bread and bitter herbs — for there is a certain 
bitterness attending this exodus from all we have 
formerly recognized and held to ; a bitterness which 
is not lost till we find that tree in the wilderness 
which thrown into the water from which we drink, 
sweetens it ; that tree of life which cannot be seen 
or found in Egypt, but which is for the healing of the 
nations ; whose leaves remove all bitterness and 
swedten our experiences in the wilderness when we 
have travelled far enough under the guidance of 
Moses to find it. 

The lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs must 
be eaten with the loins girded, shoes on the feet, and 
staff in hand ; eaten with haste, for it is the Lord's 
passover. The children of Israel so pass out from 
Egypt, pass through the wilderness and pass into the 
promised land. 

They must be ready for this journey, commenced 
as soon as they have made and consumed their 

9 



130 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

sacrifice, their loins girded with that moral courage 
which makes their steps firm and unfaltering; 
their feet protected with the shoes which prevent 
pain and soreness from the constant travel, or the 
thoughts consequent upon spiritual perception instead 
of the old habit of mortal sense. 

These ward off and prevent the weariness, other- 
wise the result of travelling when the staff is also in 
the hand ; when reliance upon the never failing truth 
to protect, to lead, to support, to comfort, to guide in- 
to its possession is unceasing ; when it is never let go 
for one moment through all these preparations for the 
journey into and through the wilderness which must 
be undertaken if we would enter in that kingdom 
promised to us because of what we are ; the chosen 
people ; chosen to possess it as an inheritance through 
our birth ; for we are the Lord's own ; led by him to 
his Self; and He, through us, brings forth His 
Christ. 

By our passing through the wilderness and into 
our inheritance which is not of the world but beyond 
it, He passes over it and manifests Himself at the end 
of the world as that Christ born of every one of us 
through our redemption from the world, through our 
coming out of Egypt and taking possession of our 
inheritance. 

Truly this is the Lord's passover ; for the whole 
process beginning with the Adam and ending with the 
Jesus, in which is this exodus, must be passed through 
and over, that the works of God may be made mani- 
fest ; through by us, over by the Lord, by the true 



THE PASSOVER. 131 

Man, that the Law may be fulfilled ; that Creation 
may be completed. 

By means of it, judgment is executed against all 
the gods of Egypt ; against all the conceptions about 
the one God which are the result of mortal sense only, 
and so belong to Egypt ; are Egypt's gods ; for by 
this passover every one of these is slain and the One 
and Only true God is passed over to, through this 
executing of judgment. All mankind shall event- 
ually recognize and obey the One ; but this result 
must be reached through this executing of judgment 
against all less than that I am. 



132 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE PASSOVER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Luke, xxn, 7-16. 

Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passovermust 

be killed. 

And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the 
passover, that we may eat. 

And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare ? 

And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the 
city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher 'of water ; 
follow him into the house where he entereth in. 

And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master 
saith unto thee. Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the 
passover with my disciples ? 

And he shall show you a large upper room furnished : there 
make ready. 

And they went and found as he had said unto them : and they 
made ready the passover. 

And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve 
apostles with him. 

And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this 
passover with you before I suffer : 

For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be 
fulfilled in the kingdom of Grod." 

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said. Take this, and 
divide it among yourselves : 

For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, 
until the kingdom of God shall come. 

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave un- 
to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you : this do 
in remembrance of me. 

Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new 
testament in my blood, which is shed for you. 



THE PASSOVEB. 133 

Remembering the significance of the book of Exo- 
dus, as the account of the going out from Egypt, 
from the land of darkness, of the children of Israel ; 
the chosen people who , having light even in that 
darkness, can be led out of it by the deliverer, spir- 
itual perception or Moses, and not forgetting that 
all the afflictions of bondage while in that land but 
lead to the coming of this deliverer when those who 
realize the bondage cry out for him ; that the plagues 
which can come upon the land because of its nature, 
trouble only those who have not light in their dwell- 
ings ; those who know only that darkness which is 
so dense it can be felt ; that the people who have 
this light slay for themselves the first-born of mortal 
sense, because this command is given them from the 
Lord through their Moses; because spiritual percep- 
tion sees its nature ; sees that it is not in accord with 
the true Man or the Lord, so must be put away from 
them ; that the children of Israel, so slaying for 
themselves, are passed over by that destroying angel 
who destroys or slays it for the Egyptians ; that these 
children of the Lord by this act of their own which 
is complete and entire, for what they slay is consumed, 
are so ready to go out of the land of darkness and 
forward into that wilderness which lies between it 
and the promised land : between the darkness of 
mortal sense and the light of spiritual understanding ; 
the leader from the one to the other being sent of 
the Lord as the deliverer from the one and shower of 
the way to the other — we are ready to see the fulfil- 
ment of this passover ; to find its product or fruit 
which is forthcoming as its sequence in accordance 



134 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

with unchangeable law, as is shown in the 6th verse 
of the 27th Chapter of Isaiah. 

" He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take 
root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the 
face of the world with fruit." Whenever seed is 
planted, a process begins which ends in the fruit 
from the seed ; the fruit which is potential with it in 
the beginning, and like unto the seed ; or is the 
manifestation of the nature of the seed. The seed of 
wheat brings forth wheat ; the seed of corn brings 
forth corn ; and this fruit of the seed is the harvest 
which is gathered. 

After the planting of the seed, between this and 
the fruit or harvest, are all the intermediate stages of 
growth. There must be the budding and blossoming 
before there can be any fruit. Each of these inter- 
mediary stages must have its own day or time and 
only the coUectiveness of these days, the fullness of 
the time, brings the fruit which can be harvested or 
kept; all preceding and less than that fullness being 
done away with ; ending with its day or time. 

The harvest is manifold ; many bushels from a 
few seeds. What is planted is returned in the har- 
vest an hundred-fold and more ; and this harvest is 
but the perfected potentialities of the seed brought 
forth from it, in accordance with the immutable law 
of cause and effect. 

In all that constitutes living, what we sow is re- 
turned to us in the harvest following the sowing ; 
returned in full measure ; pressed down and running 
over ; and this consequence is the Will of God or 



THE PASSOVER. 135 

the nature of God in operation, which so brings forth 
its own manifestation. 

The sowing of the seed results in the rooting of 
that which shall bud and blossom and bring forth 
fruit, and this rooting holds fast all that grows out 
and up from the seed till the harvest is gathered ; 
gathered by severing this fruit from its root. 

The exodus of the children of Israel, which is pre- 
ceded by and attended with those experiences which 
make it a success, is the sowing of the seed which 
so takes root. "^He shall cause them which come of 
Jacob to take root." Here the meaning of Genesis 
must be seen to perceive how it is only those who 
come of Jacob who so take root and grow to the 
fullness of the harvest. 

The children of Israel are they who come of Jacob ; 
yet Jacob is the legitimate sequence, through growth, 
from Adam ; so these are from Adam through Jacob. 
So they differ from the Egyptians because Jacob is 
their father ; while the Egyptians are the immediate 
children of Adam ; or are those who are in the mortal- 
sense consciousness lacking the perception of anything 
beyond it, or of its true nature ; to whom it and all 
as seen in it, is the real, the true and the only ; who 
experience the results of this sense of themselves and 
all visible, from which the children of Israel come 
out through their perception which pierces the visi- 
ble and so finds it the seeming ; which sees that there 
is a beyond which must be sought and found. 

Jacob, in Genesis, wrestles till daybreak and over- 
comes that with which he wrestles ; he wrestles with 
the seeming of Self till he overcomes it or comes over 



136 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

it to the sight of the true Self ; labors in the darkness 
till the light comes ; and it is the Jacob seed which 
shall take root, bud and blossom and fill the face of 
the earth with fruit. 

The Adam-seed brings that fruit which is death ; 
that is reaped after the sowing. The wages of sin, 
the inevitable result of the mistakes or errors, the sins 
of the mortal or Adam sense, is death ; they come 
to an end having no life in themselves, while the 
fruit or harvest from the Jacob-seed is life eternal ; 
each harvest being strictly in accordance with the 
seed sown ; being only the manifestation of its nature. 

So these children of Israel, this chosen people, 
chosen of the Lord as his own because on the way 
to knowledge of the Lord, to the finding of the true, 
the highest Self, are the Jacob-seed which takes root 
through their coming out of Egypt ; the result of 
the sowing of this seed and their future progress are 
but the intermediate stages between the seed sowing 
and the reaping of the fruit or harvest. Having so 
taken root, there must be the budding and the 
blossoming. This whole process must be passed over 
and is made possible through first passing out. 

The rest of the Old Testament is a record of the 
process after this seed sowing ; in the New Testa- 
ment we find the fruit so brought forth ; find what 
this passing through and over of all the intermediary 
stages has produced ; find that which fills the face 
of the world with fruit, or that Jesus who, as our ex- 
ample, makes possible like fruit all over the world 
if followed after. 

There is a likeness at every point between the ex- 



1 



THE PASSOVEB. 137 

perience of the children of Israel in Egypt, their ex- 
odus from it through those experiences which cul- 
minate in their slaying of the passover lamb ; their 
progress into and through the wilderness, their over- 
coming of all that hindered their full possession of the 
promised land, and the experience recorded of the 
Jesus of Nazareth ; for this passover, there begun, 
is here finished ; the law is fulfilled ; the fruit is in 
accordance with the seed ; and it must be gathered 
as the harvest at the end of the world or end of this 
process which produces the fruit. 

The passing over necessitates the passing through ; 
the two are equal. In exact proportion to the pass- 
ing through all the stages of growth from the planting 
of the seed is the passing over that process which 
brings the harvest. The passing through produces 
the Jesus — the fruit ; the passing over produces the 
harvest — the Christ. The fruit is cut from its root 
in the reaping of the harvest ; and so this fruit, the 
Jesus, passes over to the Christ. 

The grand meaning of this passover as recorded in 
both the Old and the New Testaments, if discerned, 
reveals the passing through which is individual to 
every one of us and by means of which we keep the 
passover. Born into sense-consciousness as Adams, 
we have to pass through that state till we make our 
exodus from it, through spiritual perception so pass- 
ing over to the next state in this world-process which 
brings us, when finished, to our true Self ; to that 
which is the full Self of Man as the Image of God ; 
to the God-like, so becoming as God. 

We do not make this exodus till our experiences 



138 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

drive us out ; till our task-masters in that state of 
sense-consciousness, make our burdens too heavy to 
be borne ; then we murmur against them and turn to 
the Lord — to the truth of our being to deliver us from 
this sense of being ; to the eternal fact of what we 
are, to release us from what we seem ; and under 
the guidance of our God-sent deliverer we go out of 
this Egypt, driven out by the strong hand of ex- 
perience into that which adjoins it and through which 
we have got to work our way. 

Passing through the wilderness is progressing 
through all that lies between this Egypt of sense-con- 
sciousness or the darkness of this state which we now 
call living, into its higher phase, or where it is 
illumined by spiritual understanding, so passing into 
that promised land ; for that condition is sure for 
those who will, with set purpose, make their exodus 
from Egypt. And this is the budding as the sequence 
of the planting of the seed which takes root and grows, 
governed by the law of growth, which is the law of 
God, to this stage. 

This passing through the wilderness is the passing 
over from darkness to light, but not by any means 
the end of the process; yet further progress can be 
made in the light, or consciously and knowingly in- 
stead of not understanding the meaning of experience 
and groping about blindly to find our way out of it. 

The work done in the promised land which puts 
us finally into undisturbed possession of it; the 
growth which produces a line of kings and conquerors 
from whom comes at last the long promised one, oi 



THE PASSOVEB. 139 

the fruit of the seed planted, is the progress which 
brings the blossoming after the budding. 

The bud of understanding unfolds through real- 
ization of the truth perceived and understood as un- 
deviating principle to disclose more and more of the 
beauties of wisdom hidden within it. The bud is 
the turning point between the planted seed and the 
fruit. It contains within it all that is so far developed 
from the seed in accordance with its nature. It is 
the promise of the fruit but it must blossom to 
bear it. 

It must open and expand, then drop the needless 
part to produce the fruit. Realization, consequent 
upon spiritual understanding is this flower or blossom 
which drops its petals, or former consciousness of the 
mistakes and errors of sense, to possess only the en- 
during, the true sense of being which does not include 
these and which is embodied in the fruit following 
the blossom ; and which is but the potentialities of 
the seed manifested or brought forth. 

All these stages are passed through to bring the 
fruit ; none of them could be left out. The bud, 
blossom, and fruit are upon that stalk upgrown from 
the root ; and the root is where the seed was planted. 
The bud is not the blossom and the blossom is not 
the fruit ; yet the last is not possible except as pre- 
ceded by the others ; and the root upholds them all. 

This process which is a whole, a unity of its several 
stages which makes it a unit, makes possible a harvest. 
No one of its stages, neither the bud nor the blossom 
is that harvest ; the fruit is for the harvest which is 
not till it is gathered ; till it is cut from the root up 



140 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

from which it has grown and which holds it to itself 
till it is so cut. 

The passing through all these stages from the 
planting of the Jacob seed through the exodus of the 
children of Israel from Egypt is at the same time 
the passing over from the seed to the fruit, and so to 
the gathering of the harvest which is the finishing of 
it all. 

This fruit is the Jesus, the all-knowing man in the 
world, the product of spiritual perception, understand- 
ing and realization of the truth or principle of being 
as opposed to the mortal sense of being ; the second 
born not the first ; the embodiment of soul-conscious- 
ness instead of sense-consciousness ; of Jacob instead 
of Adam, yet of Adam through Jacob ; the fruit of 
that which comes out of Egypt into wisdom ; the 
product of light not of darkness ; the incarnated 
result of wrestling with all contrary to the spiritual 
verity till it be overcome, and through this overcom- 
ing made manifest ; the visibility of the heretofore 
invisible ; the visibility of all the hidden potentialities 
of the seed ; the Word made flesh ; the God-Man in 
the world through that personality which is in perfect 
unity with him, because in perfect accord with the 
natures both of God and of Man. 

We find in all the Gospels of the New Testament 
that Jesus's disciples kept the passover with him ; 
that they ate it by themselves. They went up to 
Jerusalem for the purpose in common with the rest 
of the Jews but they observed this rite "in a large 
upper room, furnished and prepared." 

This separation of Jesus and his disciples from the 



THE PASSOVEB. 141 

multitude shows this higher significance of the pass- 
over which was and is beyond the perception of the 
mass who follow a custom according to the traditions 
concerning it without effort for individual under- 
standing. 

Mankind is passing through that regenerative pro- 
cess by means of which it passes from mortality to 
immortality ; passes through it wholly till that which 
is at either end becomes united ; and the keeping of 
this passover whole or entire, not a bone of its body 
broken and wholly consumed, means the redemption 
of mankind from the bondage of ignorance and the 
sufferings which are its consequences ; means its 
worked-for and won salvation from it all and posses- 
sion of that freedom which is its inheritance, secured 
through the understanding and application of eternal 
principles in place of the former blind acceptance of 
traditions. 

This upper room or higher possibility where the 
Jesus and his disciples eat the passover has been 
furnished and prepared by the growth to the Jesus 
stage ; but the passing through and over of all that 
leads to the gathering of the harvest ; to that last 
supper or consuming which is last because the fruit 
is ripe and the harvest will end the process ; it must 
be cut from its root for all to be completed. 

Only those can eat the passover with Jesus who 
are akin to the Jesus nature ; who are led by spiritual 
perception, understanding and realization instead of 
by tradition embodied in the priesthood of the letter 
of the lavr. 

Only those can eat that last supper before the pass- 



142 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

ing over is completed, for only these can be with the 
Jesus and witness the fulfilling of the Law, yet not 
wholly seeing this fulfilling till it is made visible to 
them later on ; for this Jesus as the representative of 
this process in its entirety, of the passing through 
and passing over which are equal, is the lamb which 
must be offered up for many ; the shedding of whose 
blood is for the remission of sins; the lamb whose 
innocence atones for the sins or errors which are 
so remitted ; that lamb whose blood so shed marks 
the door through which mankind goes forth from 
bondage to freedom, for its sins are the results of 
its ignorance which in itself, is natural or innocent ; 
and through true knowledge is it redeemed. 

This all-knowledge typified in the Jesus, this fruit 
from the seed, is the redemption for the world. The 
shedding of blood that is portrayed of him is the 
blood atonement for mankind as a whole by which it 
is lifted up to him ; lifted up to that same level as a 
unit, as one body, not a bone broken on the way, not 
a member of which is left out ; for this atonement 
and redemption like the passover is universal as well 
as individual. 

This final stage in the passing through wliich 
makes possible the final passing over, is the last 
supper, the last eating or consuming ; for none of 
this lamb so slain must remain in the world wliicli it 
passes out of through being consumed or eaten. So 
it is said " Take, eat ; this is my body ; drink ; this 
is my blood of the new testament which is shed for 
manv. I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine 



THE PASSOVER. 143 

until that day that I drink it new in the Kingdom of 
God." 

The fruit is ripe for the harvest ; the time of reap- 
ing is at hand ; and so for this Jesus there is no 
more in the world ; no more in this process which is 
about to be completed through the reaping of the har- 
vest ; no more of the fruit of the vine ; no more for 
him for he is the all of it, and his next eating and 
drinking is in the Kingdom of God, or in conscious 
and inseparable unity with God through the Christ ; 
for he passes over and into the Christ and so drinks 
it new. 

It is this very night, according to the record, that 
Jesus is betrayed and carried before Pilate ; it is the 
next morning that he is crucified and the visible 
part of the process is finished. As the planted seed 
is in darkness till that which comes forth from it is 
rooted and so pushes itself above the darkness of the 
ground into the light which is above it ; as the 
growth above the ground helped on by the continued 
strengthening at the root is in the light ; as the bud 
and blossom form and unfold, then bringing the fruit 
which is their sequence, so the harvest is reaped 
there also. In the morning the fruit is cut from its 
stalk leaving it and all belonging to it that it may 
feed many through being gathered. 

So this fruit, the Jesus, must be cut from that 
stalk where his disciples or those coming after him to 
the same fruitage are ; taken from them to fulfil his 
nature as that which feeds the hungry, saves them 
from suffering, heals them of their afflictions, saves 
them from death, redeems them with his blood when 



144 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

they eat his body and drink his blood ; this eating 
and drinking made possible only through this reap- 
ing of the harvest, this cutting of the fruit from the 
stalk. 

The death of Jesus through crucifixion, his resur- 
rection and ascension are only this final passing 
over and so into that which is one with God ; into 
the complete and perfected Self-consciousness which 
belongs to Man because of what he is ; into the 
Christ which was hid in the bosom of the Father 
from the beginning, and which, having been found, is 
joined to so completely through growth that there 
are no longer two but one ; no longer Jesus and the 
Christ, but Jesus Christ. 

As the children of Israel in the book of Exodus 
were saved through the shedding of blood, so are we 
to-day, children of Israel also if we will, saved 
through a Hke shedding. As they slew their lamb 
themselves so making that atonement through the 
mark of blood which caused the destroying angel to 
pass them by, so may we to-day be passed by though 
the land in which we dwell be visited by him. 

But to save ourselves this visitation we must do 
this work ourselves. We must slay our first-born, 
our mortal-sense conception ; for that sense being 
natural to mankind in its beginnings, its conception 
is the first-born to us ; and it must be put out of the 
way for the higher, the true, to be with us and guide 
us to oneness with itself, through growing up to and 
into it. 

The truth of man, the Christ, must be conceived 
by us and be grown to and into ; the nature of Man, 



TBE PASSOVEB. 145 

which is like the nature of God, must be our model 
in place of our limited sense of both ; must be that 
ideal which we constantly aspire to become, con- 
stantly reach out and up to from the limitations of 
this sense-consciousness, so growing little by little 
toward it, or becoming it ; a progress which is sure 
and by means of which our becoming ends and we 
are it. 

All of us must so pass over from sense-conscious- 
ness to soul-consciousness ; from what we seem in 
the world to what we are independent of the world ; 
all of us must keep this passover in every one of its 
stages; and all of us will be ready to slay our lamb 
when we see that its bloodshed marks our way 
out of bondage into freedom ; for the mortal-sense 
conception as the legitimate consequence of mortal 
sense, that natural to mankind in its infancy is 
innocent, is a lamb. 

There is no wilful error there ; it is the conse- 
quence of natural ignorance. It cannot be other- 
wise than that mankind's infancy is ignorance of its 
manhood, and has to grow from and out of that 
ignorance through knowledge, so reaching that man- 
hood. This lamb, innocent in itself, belongs at 
the foundation of the world — of this process which 
is the world ; and so must be slain from this foun- 
dation, and is. 

The culmination of this slaying there begun is the 
sacrifice of the Lamb of God which taketh away the 
sins of the world ; for it is constant from its begin- 
ning at the foundation or root till it is completed at 
the reaping of the fruit, the gathering of the harvest. 

10 



146 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

So, only, are our sios, our errors taken away be- 
cause so we put them away ; so through this atone- 
ment which we make, do we come to our selves ; so 
is the face of the world filled with this fruit ; for 
every individual member of mankind through keeping 
this passover shall come to that fruit-bearing stage 
which so fills the face of the world. 

Not one shall be left out, but " in the fullness of the 
time " all shall know and stand ready to be gathered 
into that Christ which is one body with many mem- 
bers ; for then the Lord of the harvest cometh and 
gathers this ripened fruit from off the face of the 
world ; gathers his own at the end of time and gath- 
ers it for eternity. 



THE LAST SUPPEB. 147 



THE LAST SUPPER. 

Mark xiv. 22-25. 

And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, 
and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. 

And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it 
to them : and tliey all drank of it. 

And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, 
which is shed for many. 

Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the 
vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. 

A FAVORITE subject with old-time painters and 
poets is this " Last Supper " which we find recorded 
in the four Gospels of the New Testament. 

Preceding as it did the betrayal and crucifixion 
of Jesus, it seems peculiarly pathetic and appeals 
strongly to that sympathy which dwells more or less 
witliin us all, ready to well up and overflow when 
the different incidents in the life of this man of 
sorrows make demand upon it. 

It would seem, as we trace the life of Jesus in the 
Gospels, as if joy and pleasure were unknown to him ; 
as if only trial and tribulation, grief and sorrow 
were the portion of this Divine worker for mankind ; 
as if even the common happiness of the human race 
were denied him who spake as never man spake, who 
unfailingly lifted, cheered, encouraged, taught and 



148 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

healed others, himself without one friend, in the 
world save the disciples who followed after him and 
who at the last forsook him and fled, leaving him, 
according to the worldly sense, utterly alone. 

This lonely, patient, wandering figure in Biblical 
history calls out all our admiration for the quiet 
heroism, our loving allegiance for the noble example 
it affords us ; and we feel an impulse for higher 
endeavor, for more unselfish effort in behalf of our 
fellows after a perusal of the narratives in which he 
is the central figure. 

Helpful as this perusal of the Gospels may be, 
this reading as historical narrative ; however much 
newly pledged loyalty and devotion to the cause 
of Christ may result from it, a higher view and 
result is possible from the gaining of a grander 
significance than the historical, the traditional one ; 
and this result, as the sequence of this higher 
significance not only wins but compels the following 
of the example afforded by the Nazarene, even to 
the experiencing of every incident in his career as 
incidents in our own ; even to the willing acceptance 
because seen as the outworkings of law, of his life 
as a whole with all its pains, its griefs, its unrecog- 
nized and unrequited work, its scourging and its 
crucifixion as our own which must be lived out to the 
same glorifying at its end. 

When this interior meaning of the Gospels, which 
is but the harmonious continuity of the meaning in 
the Old Testament, is seen, it breaks down the 
partition walls between the different races of mankind 
and unites them all, Jew and Gentile, Greek, and 



THE LAST SUPPER. 149 

barbarian alike, in the undying bond of universal 
brotherhood; and shows us that our Jesus, the Jesus 
of Christendom, is also the Jesus for the Jew, the 
Gentile, the Greek, and the barbarian ; is for them 
also the one way, the one truth and the one life as 
there mediator through which is manifest the uni- 
versal Christ ; the personality or visibility of that 
one I Am, that one God who is no respecter of 
persons, but who is the same for every one that calls 
upon his name. 

This higher significance which uses history but is 
not used by it ; which molds tradition but is not 
molded by it, shows a meaning to every recorded 
incident in the life of which is a part or a section of 
the continuous meaning ; and reveals all of them as 
manifestations of law instead of the happenings of a 
people and a time; manifestations which have to 
come to and for every one of us before we too can 
know that the hour is come when we can and shall 
depart out of this world unto the Father. 

This last supper is possible only as the last of 
many which must precede it ; is but the last eating 
and drinking which has been first before it could be 
last ; and is last only for those who have followed 
Jesus in the regecieration ; not for those who have 
not so followed, but are still in the kind of generation 
which must cease before they can be disciples. 

To find the grand meaning of this last supper, this 
last eating of the passover which is completed in the 
passing over of the Jesus to the Christ, the passing 
out of the world over to or unto the Father with 
which the Christ is one, we must find the beginning 



150 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

of the passover and the first eating thereof ; find the 
statement of the law to see and understand its 
fulfilling ; follow it from its first stages through the 
intermediate ones to the last ; to the glorifying or 
putting on of that Self which is for mankind ; which 
is one with the Father of mankind and which waits 
there till we go to and claim it, reaching and receiving 
it through the eating or consuming of the old self, the 
self of the world with its many parts ; eating supper 
after supper, drinking the fruit of the vine as we 
grow along the vine, till reaching that we have so 
grown to, we eat and drink our last in the world and 
receive all new in the kingdom of God. 

We must go back to Genesis, to generation, in order 
to find and follow the regeneration which brings to 
us this last supper, through many preceding ones. 
If we are able to perceive the distinction between the 
man of the first chapter of Genesis and the Adam 
of the second chapter we shall see the first as the 
generated and the second as the regenerated ; or the 
first as the created, the produced, and the second as 
the recreated or reproduced. In other words we 
shall see the man of the first chapter, the image of 
God, as the effect of First Cause which acts as Cause 
for that which follows it. 

Being the created or produced, it acts as producer 
in turn ; hence reproducer and its product is repro- 
duction ; while it, as effect of First Cause or God, is 
production or the generated ; what comes from it is 
necessarily the regenerated ; and this regeneration is 
an image of it as it is the image of its Cause. 

That Creation may be completed or that all that God 



THE LAST SUPPER. 151 

is may be manifested as well as expressed, this re- 
generation must be equal to the generation ; the 
reproduction equal to the production. The image 
of man must be as complete, as such, as man is com- 
plete as the image of God; for the Likeness of God 
must be forthcoming after the image of God ; what 
God is actively is as essential to that manifestation 
which completes Creation as what God is passively ; 
and all manifestation of that which is beyond form is 
through form ; the nature of the formless is revealed 
only through that form which is its image. 

Hence that the works of God, that all the sequences 
of that nature of God which are the works, may be made 
manifest, the reproduction, the regeneration is es- 
sential as form or image of that form or image which 
includes those ; or if man is the image of God, the 
entity of all images or expressions of God, his own 
as complete image is essential to the manifestation of 
God ; for the Likeness or the activity of God is yet to 
become visible and through the means thus afforded 
for the visibility. 

When we can see that man's image has its place 
in Creation as assuredly as has God's image, and 
that the Likeness of the one to the other, of the re- 
generated to the generated is all important to the 
manifestation of the nature of God and of man — for 
the medium for manifestation must be perfect, as 
such, that the manifestation may be perfect — we 
shall see that a perfect image of man alone affords a 
perfect manifestation of man ; and that a perfect mani- 
festation of man is a like manifestation of God, Man 
being the image of God. 



152 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Therefore Producer, Production and Reproduction, 
or Generator, Generated and Regenerated stand in 
harmonious relation to each other ; and the product 
or sequence of this unity in which each has its own 
place is the Likeness of the first two, made possibly 
by the medium through which it comes. 

This full likeness is the Christ which is the like- 
ness of God and of Man equally ; of the Generator 
and the Generated ; and is through the Regenerated, 
or image which is its medium. 

So this likeness or the Christ is one with God in 
what it is ; but as the visible Christ is the product 
of regeneration which opens the way for this visi- 
bility, and which is through form or through the 
Jesus, the regenerated, the son of Man, as man the 
generated is the Son of God. 

The end of the world is the full manifestation of 
the Christ ; hence Jesus is the end of the world as 
the image or figure through which the Christ is visi- 
ble; is the end of regeneration for its purpose is 
accomplished. 

As this end of regeneration every one of us must 
follow after him in the way of regeneration. Jesus 
speaks of his disciples as " Ye which have followed 
me in the regeneration." Adam is the first image of g^ 
man or the first of mankind ; Jesus is the last image 
of man or the last and highest of mankind ; and this 
process of regeneration from first to last must bel 
followed for the end of the world to come. [ 

Seeing the image of Man, the son of man or person ;. 
passively, is to see only that figure which represents 
Man or the Son of God. Seeing the action through. 



THE LAST SUPPER. 153 

the son of man is to see Man or the Son of God act- 
ing through him ; and to understand this action as 
such is to see the Christ, the Likeness of God ; for 
Man in what he is and can do, is the Likeness of his 
Cause. 

Beginning with Adam as a son of man, one mem- 
ber of that body which is the son of man or Jesus, 
the manifestation of the Christ, the Likeness of God 
which is visible through this figure is but the very 
least; and there is ascension in these manifestations 
from the least to the greatest as the figures through 
which it comes ascend, from the least to the greatest ; 
for all manifestation must be in proportion to the 
capacity of the medium for it. 

The least possible degree of what Man is, therefore 
of his likeness to God or the Christ, is manifest 
through the Adam ; for that capacity is the least. A 
higher degree is manifest through the Enos ; still 
higher through the Noah ; higher yet, in orderly suc- 
cession, through the Abraham, the Isaac and the 
Jacob; and the highest, the full manifestation is 
through the Jesus, the perfect one or person as the son 
of man^ so perfect medium for complete manifestation 
of what Man is ; and this complete manifestation of 
what Man is, is equally the manifestation of God, Man 
being like God; and this perfect likeness, so made 
manifest, is the Christ which has ever been in the 
world according to the opportunity ; least with the 
Adam, greater and greater with his successors, the 
greatest with the Jesus or at the end of the world. 

These figures or persons in the world are, passively, 
the product of generation from Man ; the action with 



154 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

and through them, is regeneration in Man. By this 
action, one disappears for the next to take its place, 
for a higher than the visible one is always being 
generated. 

Man regenerates or brings forth his Self ; brings 
forth his own potentialities as the image of God ; 
and these brought forth are in their entity the like- 
ness of God or the Christ, the Divine Nature. Con- 
sequently every one of these figures which are 
mediums for the manifestation of the nature of Man 
and so of his likeness to God, are personalities, or the 
visible parts of selfs which are less than the one com- 
plete Self yet to come. 

Therefore they must make way for each other ; 
the first and least must disappear for the next and 
liigher to take its place ; and so on through the whole 
scale. The first must be consumed and is, for the 
very process which produces it, produces its suc- 
cessor, and produces that successor through consum- 
ing it the first. 

Watch the growth from infancy for an illustration 
of this fact. The very law which has produced the 
infant will produce its successor, tlie child, because 
it works without ceasing. But as the child is pro- 
duced the infant is consumed ; and through this cease- 
less working the boy is produced to succeed the child 
it being consumed therefore ; and so on till the whole 
scale is run ; and when what we call death comes, it 
is but the last consuming or last supper which cause 
the successor of this visible to appear. 

But that, by its nature, being invisible to the sense 
which has its predecessors, to that sense there is no 



THE LAST SUPPER. 155 

successor. When a person dies, we say that is the 
end because we do not see the next stage in the 
world process which is not yet at an end. 

As that which has produced the infant produces 
the child, the boy, the youth, the man and old age 
in orderly succession, so the Adam and his successors 
up to the Jesus follow each other, the first being con- 
sumed or eaten that the next may come for this 
food is necessary to a successor ; and the second is 
eaten for the third, the third for the fourth and so 
on till the last supper has come. 

As the dying of old age is called a natural death, it 
being only what has occurred constantly from infancy 
to that point, only the same consuming which has 
been carried on from the beginning, natural as all 
the preceding deaths have been natural and but one 
of them, so the death of the Jesus is but the con- 
tinuance of the dying which began with Adam and 
by means of which Adam's successor appeared ; a 
dying which must be constant all through the world, 
for Enos must make way for the Noah, the Noah for 
the Abraham, the Abraham for the Isaac, the Isaac 
for the Jacob, and the Jacob for the Jesus, and the 
Jesus for the Christ. 

The death from old age, the natural death as we 
call it, but represents the death of the Jesus of man- 
kind ; it is natural, not forced, the working out of the 
law, not the transgression of law; only its fulfilling. 
That old age has its successor ; but because we do 
not see it, we wonder if there can be more ; yet we 
shall see it when the time has come for that seeing. 

So the Jesus disappears — he is the last supper — his 



156 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

body and blood must be consumed, eaten and drank 
that his successor may appear. He is the last mortal 
or the last of mortality, and his successor, which has 
all the while acted through him, is then the all ; for 
the Jesus is in this successor or the Christ through 
this consuming, just as all the predecessors of the 
Jesus are in him through the same eating. With 
him the scale has reached its height ; the highest note 
has been sounded; the harmony heard through the 
note remains, for it is eternal. 

This consuming of the body is through the con- 
suming of the soul of the body. The Adam soul or 
self must be consumed for its visibility or the person 
to disappear. Subjective and objective are a unity 
and this unity must go for a successor higher than it 
to appear. These selfs are generated from Man or 
the Lord and must be constantly regenerated ; con- 
stantly destroyed for new and higher ones to come. 

Every self beginning with the least Adam, is what 
may be called a soul and its body ; the soul being 
the subjective and the body the objective of that 
unity, the self. This soul must die or come to an 
end, and its ceasing is the cessation of the body be- 
longing to it; just as infancy must cease, and so its 
body ceases as well. But that which operates upon 
this soul and produces its successor, bringing it to its 
legitimate and necessary end the while, overcomes 
that self by this very process and goes on to the next 
which is overcome in its turn in the same way. 

Man produces these selfs beginning with Adam 
and ending with Jesus ; operates upon and through 
each one, constantly, overcoming them in their order, 



THE LAST SUPPER. 157 

consuming soul and body till the perfected soul and 
body stands forth at last as the highest Self ; highest 
because manifesting the full nature of Man as like 
God ; showing what he is as the God-like. 

This consuming is regeneration ; a generating from 
lowest to highest till the regenerated stands forth ; 
and the active power by which it is accomplished is 
the thinking power. It belongs to Man as the think- 
ing being who expresses the One Mind ; belongs to 
that entity which Man is, therefore belongs propor- 
tionately to every degree or part of Man ; and this 
power, active in every part because active in and 
with that whole possessing it, forms or generates the 
self of the part; the soul of the self being the self- 
consciousness which belongs to a degree of Man, and 
the body being but the objectivity of that subjective. 

Therefore there must be many selfs, each degree 
of man having its own, and these will range from 
least to greatest. Their entity or sum will be the 
Self of Man. The Soul of this self will be the com- 
plete self-consciousness belonging to Man, and the 
body will be objective of that subjective, or the spirit- 
ual body. 

In this continuous process which is from the think- 
ing being, Man, each soul has to be lost to be found ; 
or every degree of self-consciousness has to be recog- 
nized as a degree only which is not existent in it- 
self, separate from others, but as existing in the whole 
of which it is only a part. 

Just as the self-consciousness of infancy must be 
lost or come to an end for a higher, that of childhood 
to come or be, and just as the first is in the second 



158 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

as the lesser is in the greater, so every self or every 
degree of self-consciousness must cease as the seem- 
ing all and be found in that which is greater than it. 

As there is something which precedes and succeeds 
what we see as the infant and its old age, so Man 
and the self-consciousness of Man as the entity or 
whole precedes and succeeds all these selfs which Man 
constitute mankind, soul and body ; all these from 
Adam to Jesus ; and they are generated in their order 
through regeneration ; the nature of Man producing 
and acting upon all of them, till through them that 
nature is fully manifested ; and so God is made mani- 
fest, it being the Likeness of God. 

The generations from Man, from the Lord to the 
Christ, begin with Adam and end with the Jesus ; 
yet each of them is the regeneration of its predecessor. 
They are all lost and all found again. They are all 
eaten or consumed ; and not till the last supper or 
last consuming, the last losing and finding does the 
final product of regeneration stand forth as the all, 
the eternal, all else having made way for it. 

This Christ which so stands forth, not being of the 
world or not one of these selves which together con- 
stitute the world, is not visible to the sense belong- 
ing to the world, or to these selfs which are self-seeing 
only, and cannot see the entity in which they belong. 

At the end of this generating and regenerating 
process is the eating and drinking new in the king- 
dom of God, outside of the world, the world being 
overcome ; outside of or beyond the limitations of 
the mortal sense. It is the conscious conjoining 
to Infinity through finding or reachmg the Infinite 



THE LAST SUPPEB. 159 

Self-consciousness ; and the only way to this finding 
is through eating the body and drinking the blood of 
all selfs less than the highest. 

Through this eating and drinking is the generating 
of a higher than we now know, and it is the regen- 
erating which must be constant. Right use of the 
thinking power regenerates what we seem to be, bring- 
ing a self-consciousness which is higher than our old 
one. 

Continued right use brings a higher and a higher 
till we outgrow the limitations of mortal sense and 
stand revealed " in his likeness." It is the power 
through whose action the works of God are made 
manifest ; for Man, as the entity of all which is from 
God, is made manifest through it. Mankind is formed 
by it, is regenerated through it till it wholly, entirely 
represents Man and so God, for Man is like God ; 
and through that which is so formed, the Cause of 
all is made known. 

What is mankind and where does it come from ? 
Mankind is the scale which is played upon from its 
lowest to its highest note, that the harmony which is 
in, of, and between all things in Creation and between 
it and its Cause may be sounded ; that what God is, 
and what Man is may be manifested. 

This universal harmony is the voice of God in 
Creation which shall be heard in the uttermost parts ; 
and the divine music of this scale is the music of the 
spheres for every note in it is a sphere, a whole dis- 
tmct from the others yet not separate from them, 
round and full in itself. 

Mankind is the link between one half of Creation 



160 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

and the other; as tones are the link between music 
in itself and music out of itself or sounded ; for music 
is in the silence, dwells there. It is called forth when 
it speaks through the medium for that speech, sound ; 
and sound needs and has tones for harmony. Except 
harmony be expressed there is no music ; monotony 
is not music. 

This scale from Adam to Jesus is the medium 
through which that divine harmony is sounded which 
is revealing God and Man in their eternal oneness. 
Every tone in it must be struck to utilize all its pos- 
sibilities ; and struck with the master-hand, no dis- 
cord results ; nothing but the sweetest and the grand- 
est music ; sweeter and grander as the mastery of 
the scale rises higher and higher till it includes entire 
dominion over it. 

Upon it is played the Song of Life ; through it is 
heard only that Song by the ear attuned to the har- 
mony and listening for it. Though there be minor 
chords they but help to swell the volume of sound 
which is music only ; and by their contrast, new 
beauties and higher possibilties are revealed. 

Who of us is learning to recognize the master-hand 
which plays upon this scale ? To see that every 
chord, glad or sorrowful as such, is but an essential 
part of the grand whole brought forth through it? 
To sing this song in unison with this harmony, gladly, 
joj^fully, willingly giving utterance to it in the world, 
knowing that it is not of the world but of and from 
that which precedes and succeeds the world, eternal 
and everlasting? 

Living in all that it is from its lowest to its high- 



"^HE LAST SUPPEB. 161 

est range or possibility is the " song celestial " which 
is uttered by all that speaks through mankind. In 
this divine harmony we all have place ; listening we 
catch its first faint strains ; still listening we hear 
them swell louder and louder till we hear naught 
but the harmony, all else consumed by it ; and the 
glad pean of victory at its end is for us, is with us, 
is sung by us, for we have entered into the joy of our 
Lord. 

11 



162 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



CROWN OF THORNS. 

John, xix. 1-5. 

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. 

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his 
head, and they put on him a purple robe. 

And said. Hail, King of the Jews ! and they smote him with 
their hands. 

Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto him. Behold, 
I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in 
him. 

Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the 
purple robe. And Pilate saith imto them, Behold the man ! 

Only as we become able to trace the continuity of 
the underlying significance of the Bible, beginning 
with its first book, Genesis, are we able to gain 
the true meaning of this chief character of tlie New 
Testament, Jesus of Nazareth, and the equally true 
meaning of the several events with which he is con- 
nected, and which form a continuous narrative pictori- 
ally illustrative of his nature. 

His crucifixion, which follows his teachings and 
his works as their inevitable sequence, is preceded by 
the crown of thorns wliich is worn by him and is 
accompanied by scourging. 

In the teachings known as modern Christianity, 
this crown of thorns has no especial significance. It 
is pointed out as one of the means used by the Jews 



CROWN OF THOBNS. 163 

who crucified Jesus to humiliate and cause him suffer- 
ing ; and our emotions are appealed to, our sympa- 
thies are aroused by this presentation, while he is put 
forward as the one above all others entitled to our 
utmost love and loyalty. 

In the pictures of the suffering Jesus we see this 
crown upon his head, its sharp •thorns piercing his 
flesh and causing the blood-drops to flow ; while 
these are pictured as faithfully as the rest. 

It is a very literal, material, physical Jesus that is 
so presented to us, and his crown is one of ignominy 
and punishment ; not of royalty. 

Because this Jesus of the Gospels is not under- 
stood for what he is, the different features of this 
narrative are so much dead letter yet every one of 
them is full of a living, pulsating, vivifying meaning 
and is connected with every other one so as to make 
a harmonious whole. 

This crown of thorns stands forth as a grand and 
mighty proof of the nature of its wearer. Jesus 
could not be crucified till he had been possessor of it ; 
till he had been crowned with it as the recognition of 
his royalty. 

It is one of those links in the chain of sequence 
from Genesis which is all essential to the result of 
that sequence ; to the disappearance of the Jesus 
whose work is finished only through the wearing of 
this crown ; and his disappearance or death on the 
cross, is the natural, not the forced and unnatural 
result of what he is. 

To understand the meaning of this crown of thorns, 
we must go back to Genesis and find its_ cause, its 



164 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

beginning; or rather the beginning of the thorns 
composing it. 

The first mention of thorns which we find there, is 
in the 18th verse of the 3d chapter. Beginning 
with the preceding verse we read : — '' Because thou 
hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and hast 
eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, 
Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy 
sake : in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of 
thy life ; Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to 
thee." 

A brief explanation of the one to whom these 
words are addressed, is necessary to further explana- 
tion. This Adam has always been confounded with 
the man of the first Chapter of Genesis, who is there 
described as made in the image of God, by the teachers 
of the letter of the Bible ; by the conservators and 
handers-down of tradition. 

They say, man was created pure and perfect ; but 
that he fell from his high estate through the sin of 
disobedience to the command of God. 

This statement is not warranted even by the letter 
of Genesis. What is called the command of God is 
the command of the Lord God instead, and the two 
are not synonymous. The mistake of considering them 
so is the fundamental error in modern Christianity. 

It is the Lord God, not God ; not tlie God of the 
first chapter who says to Adam " Of every tree of the 
garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of 
it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
surely die." 



CROWN OF THORNS. 165 

And this is not a command which should have been 
obeyed ; but a statement of what the legitimate con- 
sequences will be, if a certain thing is done ; and it 
is not addressed to the man of the first chapter of 
Genesis ; to the pure and perfect being created by 
God as there portrayed, but to that far less than he : 
to that whicli is not the image of God, and which is 
not stated so to be. 

This man who is this image of the first chapter, 
and the one formed of the dust of the ground by the 
Lord God or the Adam of the second chapter, are 
not identical, any more than their creators or makers 
are identical. 

They are two distinct products of two distinct yet 
inseparable producers ; and only through perception 
of this fact can the contradictions, absurdities, which 
are the result of making them identical be met and 
overthrown ; because this perception, with what it 
includes, followed out to its own conclusions will 
give a rational and satisfactory explanation of what 
is called the fall of man and the necessity for his 
redemption which is met by theological vicarious 
atonement. 

The Lord God of the second chapter is the man, 
the being pure and perfect in his nature who is de- 
scribed in the first chapter as the image of God. 

This is the effect of God or First Cause, acting as 
cause in turn ; or Man is the Son of God as the effect 
of that Cause which is God ; and as such has that 
productive nature which causes him to have his effect, 
or to bring forth his son. 

The first chapter is the record of the production of 



166 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the Son of God, or Man ; the second is the beginning 
of the record of the production of the son of man ; 
and these two records are not antagonistic to each 
other but are in perfect harmony, as are these two sons 
likewise. 

The Son of God and the son of man, their relation 
to each other and to their Cause, is the underlying 
basis of the whole of this book, the Bible, which, as a 
whole explains these. 

The Adam of the second chapter is not the per- 
fected, the complete son of man, only his beginnings. 
The fruit of this beginning is the true or whole Son 
of Man, and this is the Jesus of the New Testament. 

It is the process between the Adam and the Jesus, 
between the beginning and the end, which is illustrated 
in the Bible through persons, places, and things ; 
which is so objectively presented"; and this process 
begins with eating of the tree of knowledge of good 
and evil. 

This eating, which has been called disobedience to 
the command of God, but which is not, in the true 
sense, is the legitimate and necessary consequence of 
the nature of the Adam ; is the beginning of that 
process which alone can bring forth the Jesus. 

It is not a fall from perfection and purity through 
disobedience. The statement that the perfect can 
become imperfect through its own act is illogical to 
begin with ; for whatever can change its own nature 
is greater than the cause which has produced it ; and 
if man can change his nature through his own act, 
he is greater than that God which has produced his 
nature. It is the same as to say that effect can sup- 



CBOWN OF THORNS. 167 

plant and supersede cause ; can take from cause its 
nature ; its power to act in harmony with itself. 

What is called the fall of man, but which is not, 
because man cannot fall or change from what he is 
as man, is the change from that innocence which is 
ignorance to knowledge — a fall up instead of down. 
It is the sequence of the nature of the Adam who is 
the personification of a state of consciousness or of a 
degree of the self-consciousness belonging to man, the 
image of God ; is a fraction of a unit ; and each fraction 
of this unit, Man, or each degree has to gain its own 
knowledge, having as a help thereto that gained by all 
the previous degrees. 

The ignorance or innocence of all after the Adam is 
comparative, as the second has the knowledge gained 
by the Adam and so is ignorant or innocent of only 
what lies beyond itself. 

The Adam, as the first, is entirely innocent or 
ignorant and consequently " falls," which is the term 
used in consequence of non-perception of the nature 
of the Adam, and of the meaning of the temptation 
of the serpent. 

We have an old proverb, " A little knowledge is a 
dangerous thing ; " and its truth is illustrated right 
here in the third chapter of Genesis ; for after eating 
of the tree of knowledge Adam and Eve, of course, 
knew something where before they knew nothing , 
they began to do that which would bring them the 
knowledge which is power, bring them conscious 
strength, dominion and peace only by its continuance 
to higher and higher planes ; and between this be- 
ginning and these highest lies experience, which 



168 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

contains what is here called good and evil ; here lies 
this ground which is cursed for his sake or cursed to 
him ; meaning, painful for him through the experience 
which is inevitable as the consequence of a little 
knowledge and through which the knowledge that 
is power is gained. 

The pains and pangs of experience are what are 
here called the thorns and thistles which the ground 
brings forth to him. Mark this wording well ! It 
is not said that this ground is an accursed thing in 
itself ; is an evil or bad thing to cultivate or to know ; 
the thorns and thistles are not part of the ground it- 
self ; they are only what it brings forth to the Adam; 
they are the legitimate accompaniments of experience 
only, which, in its continuance, reaches a point where 
they are mastered, where the ground brings forth 
wheat instead. 

This truth maybe illustrated by the experience 
which lies between childhood and manhood. The 
childhood is the Adam and the manhood is the 
Jesus ; back of both the childhood and the manhood, 
of both the Adam and the Jesus, lies that which is 
developing its nature ; and this development is made 
objective through this progress from childhood. 

The experience which lies between the two con- 
tains thorns and thistles for the child, necessarily ; 
but the child's thorns and thistles are nothing to the 
full-grown man. 

It will suffer inevitably because of its natural or 
child sense of things; and learn through its suffering 
that that was only the accompaniment of its child- 
hood. 



CROWN OF THORNS. 169 

How well do we remember the thorns and thistles 
which childhood brought forth for us ! How clearly 
do we see now that they belonged there, and it could 
not have been otherwise ! How clearly can we see 
to-day that we learned needed lessons through them ; 
lessons which we had to learn in order to grow ! 
How clearly we see that growth was the consequence 
of experience ! 

Where, to-day, is the suffering which was ours then 
because we were denied what we wanted; because 
we could not do many things which we wished to do ? 
Where the intense pain and sorrow when authority, 
in the shape of our elders, thwarted our childish 
schemes and hedged our way about so that we could 
not always carry out the wishes and designs of our 
cliild sense ? Where is that sense ? Why, it be- 
longed to childhood, and all these pangs and pains 
belonged there too, as its consequence ; and we became 
strong men and women only as we plucked out these 
sharp thorns from our consciousness one by one, and 
outgrew their sting. 

How many times were we told by those who knew 
because they had travelled over the same road, passed 
through the same experience, " Do not feel so badly! 
There is no need for it ! You do not understand 
now because you are a child ; one of these days you 
will know better!" And how many times have we 
tried manfully and womanfully to bear these burdens, 
so great and heavy to us, so little and insignificant to 
those elders who were wise where we were ignorant ! 

Looking back over all this we see that this ex- 
perience, this process was necessary to what is called 



170 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the building of character ; and what is this but the 
developing, the bringing forth to visibility of hidden 
potentialities in us ? 

We were inherently able to stand against this 
suffering : to pluck out the sharp thorns so that they 
should sting no more ; to exercise dominion over 
them, that dominion potentially belonging to us and 
which had to be developed by experience, and so 
we grew day by day toward manhood and woman- 
hood ; grew day by day, stronger, grander, gaining 
little by little that knowledge which is power. 

Looking back over it all do we not see that it had 
to be ? That it was a means to an end ? That we 
could not have known what we were capable of 
reaching and holding, otherwise ? 

Can we not see that it was all, oh, so real to us ! 
while we were conscious of it, but that, the conscious- 
ness outgrown, it has passed as the mist of the morn- 
ing in the sunlight ? 

All the while we were children feeling the sting 
of the thorns which the ground of childhood brought 
forth to us, there was some one who knew better 
than we did and who told us the truth about what 
we were experiencing ; yet we had to learn our own 
lessons in order to know for ourselves. 

Just so is it with us as Adams to-day. The ground 
which lies between the childhood and manhood or 
perfect and complete self-consciousness brings forth 
thorns to us because of our sense about ourselves 
and it. We must grow, to know better ; to see that 
these thorns can sting and hurt only the one who 
lets them do so ; who does not pluck them out with 



CROWN OF THORNS. 171 

a strong hana ; and to see that this strong hand is 
developed through growth ; through growing nat- 
urally and legitimately from Adam childhood to 
Jesus manhood. 

Pain of every kind ; sorrow from its least to its 
highest form ; everything which our child or mortal 
sense calls evil, bad, bitter, unbearable ; all these are 
the thorns which this ground — this passage from 
mortality to immortality, from partial to complete 
self-consciousness, brings forth to us ; are part of our 
experience therein ; and all are left behind when the 
passage is made, the development completed. 

Yet they are carried through to its end ; but O ! 
how differently at the end from the beginning I Then 
it is with groans and outcries and bitter pains ; but 
afterwards in silence with strength, with power, with 
dominion over them ; dominion over their power to 
wound because they are plucked out of the flesh and 
carried in the strong hand of the master. 

So long as they are allowed to rankle in the flesh, 
so long will suffering and evil be the reality of exist- 
ence to us ; or so long as we believe our ills to origi- 
nate in the body and our woes in other things or 
circumstances independent of ourselves, so long will 
these conditions be the real to us, to the exclusion of 
all else. 

Not till they are plucked from thence through 
that knowledge which is power because that knowl- 
edge which is wisdom ; through knowing that the 
truth of being is eternal and immutable, and that 
only a sense of being or existing holds to itself all 
suffering, will they be overcome or come over ; be 



172 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

dominated or made subject in place of ruling ; be 
mastered, and so be the royal crown of the one who 
thus has the right to wear it ; that crown which pro- 
claims the royalty or the divine nature of its wearer, 
and shows him master of the world because master 
of all the sin, sickness, sorrow, and death ; of all the 
evil and suffering which seem a part of it. 

This master, so crowned, is the fruit of that which 
has brought him forth. 

The complete self-consciousness which belongs to 
manhood, the son of God, is made manifest through 
this ripened mortal, this perfected son of Man who 
is one with his Father through this link between 
them ; for this self-consciousness, which has been de- 
veloped by degree to fullness, has its fullness repres- 
ented in this Jesus — this full-grown son of Man who, 
as making manifest that dominion over all things 
which belongs to his Father, is master over all on 
his own line ; and this mastery has been grown to 
step by step as the self-consciousness of the only Man 
has developed by degrees, or according to the law of 
Creation which is the Law of God. 

Whatever we to-day pronounce to be evil; what- 
ever we believe ourselves to be subject to ; whatever 
we are afraid of ; whatever we declare to be unbear- 
able ; whatever we say makes us to suffer and to die, 
must be overcome by us before we can wear this 
crown ; and wear it we must if we would also sit 
down at the right hand of the Father in the kingdom. 

Every one of these thorns in the flesh — which is 
an expression meaning the pangs and pains in our 
self-consciousness — must be plucked out before it 



CBOWN OF THORNS. 173 

can be made ; for it is composed of them and so it 
cannot be complete, cannot be that whole or circle 
which makes it a crown while any one of them is 
lacking because still in the flesh. 

Paul's thorn in the flesh for which he besought the 
Lord that it might depart from him, was not so re- 
moved. They cannot depart of themselves, from 
our consciousness ; and all our imploring to that end, 
prompted by our still incomplete perception of what 
we have to accomplish, receives the only answer pos- 
sible ; yet which seems so unsatisfactory to our mor- 
tal sense, for the reply, " My grace is sufficient unto 
thee," sliows us that no imploring for their removal 
will avail; it is our personal, mortal sense which so 
implores because of lack of understanding of the 
nature of the thorns. 

That answer shows us that we must pluck them 
out for ourselves, and that power to do this, power 
to gather them one by one together, through this 
plucking out, so that we finally leave them behind as 
testimony to our progress higher, is ours because 
we are always in unity with our Father which is in 
Heaven ; and from that source, ever open to us, comes 
all the strength we need for this plucking out ; all 
we can use. 

This royal diadem proclaims a pure self-conscious- 
ness or one in accord with men's spiritual nature ; 
one containing none of the actualities of mortal per- 
sonal sense ; one purified from them, and knowing 
only the unchanging, immortal truth of being. 

These penalties of mortality rule the mortal gov- 
erned by mortal sense ; he writhes and cries out un- 



174 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

der their sting, not yet seeing that the power is his 
to pluck them out when he knows enough to discern 
their true nature and his own ; but little by little, 
because of the knowledge gained by experience, he 
begins to see, and rouses himself to the putting forth 
of the strong hand which makes them change place ; 
makes them subjects instead of rulers. He plucks 
them out and holds them with a firm grasp, carrying 
them to the end ; but not as he did at first ; carry- 
ing them as their master instead of their servant, who 
has so proved his right to sit down at the right hand 
of the Father; to have no consciousness contrary 
to that which belongs to the immortal Son of God, 
because he has proved himself victor over all less 
than it. 

It is the difference between subjection and mastery. 
The Adam is subject, the Jesus is master ; and be- 
tween these two points lie all the several stages which 
are ever in the ascending scale from first to last. 

It is one thorn after another uprooted from that 
ground which brings it forth, plucked out of that flesh 
which quivers at its presence, till all are uprooted, 
till all are plucked out ; till every so-called sorrow and 
pain has lost its power to wound ; till we liave out- 
grown the liability so to suffer, and thus stand at last 
master over every one of them because master of 
mortality with all that it includes ; and so conscious 
possessor of immortality which has ever been our 
inheritance. 

So long as we fear and shrink from these things 
which are real to the mortal sense of them, so long 
are we subject to them ; not till we begin to perceive 



CROWN OF THORNS. 175 

their nature through using a higher than mortal sense, 
do we begin to pluck them out ; because not till then 
do we know that we can do so ; but when we see and 
know this, all depends upon ourselves ; upon drawing 
out with our own hand these rankling thorns, and 
holding them fast with a strong grip till all are with- 
drawn till our work, which merits and receives the 
" Well done ! good and faithful servant ! " weaves 
them into that encircling crown which marks its 
weaver the royal son of the Son ; which proves him 
victor over the world, over all the things of the world 
and so makes him done with the world because his 
work is finished. 

O ! my friends ! Will you go forth to day with 
renewed determination to win and wear this crown, 
undeterred by the scourging at the hand of sense 
which is its inevitable accompaniment ? 

That sense, the one which governs others in their 
judgments of us, will scourge us every step of the way 
to the end, because it is too limited in its range to 
see either the meaning of that end or the beyond 
of it. 

By church and state, by both ecclesiastical and 
civil law will this scourging be meted out to us ; at 
the hands of the high priest and the soldiers must 
we receive and bear it ; but beyond the end of this 
process which is progress, beyond the wearing of this 
royal crown they cannot go. 

This scourging ceases there ; and the one to whom 
it is given not only bears it without murmuring be- 
cause he knows from whence it comes and its power- 
lessness over him, but he also passes out of their 



176 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

hands and beyond their power forever through the 
very means they use to defeat and destroy him. 

Can you see that no higher recognition of the 
nature of the work you are doing while plucking out 
these thorns ; of the position you occupy as the future 
wearer of the crown so made, is possible, than the 
non-recognition, by both church and state, of the 
work and its consequences ? 

Grander tribute could not be paid than this scourg- 
ing at their hands who think thus to stop and turn back 
omnipotent Law ; who think thus to destroy those who 
are working with it to its own ends ; its own mani- 
festation 

O ! look to this crown as the crown of the victor, 
that which none that this world can offer, but is far 
less than one of its many thorns ! 

Look to this scourging as the proclamation of your 
right to weave and wear it ! As your passport to that 
infinite beyond — the freedom of the sons of God, 
beside which the boasted freedom of the world is as 
naught, for it belies its name and scourges those who 
outgrow its prerogatives and so offer no testimony in 
their own behalf, but pass on higher. 



THE CMUVIFIJCIOM. Ill 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

Matthew xxvii. 33-50. 

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is 
to say, a place of a skull. 

They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall : and when 
he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. 

And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots ; 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They 
parted my garments among them, and upon my vestm-e did they 
cast lots. 

And sitting down, they watched him there : 

And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS 
THE KING OF THE JEWS. 

Then were there two thieves crucified with him ; one on the 
right hand, and another on the left. 

And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. 

And saying, Thou that destroy est the temple, and buildest it in 
three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down 
from the cross. 

Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes 
and elders, said. 

He saved others ; himself he cannot save. If he be the King 
of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will be- 
lieve him. 

He trusted in God ; let him deliver him now, if he will have 
him : for he said, I am the Son of God. 

The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same 
in his teeth. 

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land 
unto the ninth hour. 

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying 
12 



178 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Eli, Eli, lama sabaclithani ? that is to say. My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? 

Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This 
man calleth for Elias. 

And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled 
it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. 

The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save 
him. 

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up 
the ghost. 

The great lesson taught by what is called the 
Crucifixion comprises far more than is made mani- 
fest through what seems to be the all of it, the deatli 
upon the cross of Jesus of Nazareth, who thereby 
makes expiation for our sins and enables us to enter 
that heaven which would otherwise be closed to us. 
Looking upon this as an event which took place at a 
certain time and in a certain country, all verifiable 
as true or in accord with the Christian belief about 
them, we fall far short of its highest significance. 

While this crucifixion of this Nazarene may be 
true historically like many of the events portrayed 
in the Bible, it and they are used as a means to an 
end ; and it is this end we are to seek to understand 
and to know ; to recognize as the all essential for 
ourselves, not stopping on the way thereto by mis- 
taking any of these means used for a purpose, for 
that end. 

The true aim of the Bible is not to show us the 
necessity of accepting and worshipping Jesus of 
Nazareth as the Son of God who proved himself such 
by his resurrection after his crucifixion , it is rather 
to show us that that end to which these were the 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 179 

last stepping-stones is what we are also to aspire to. 

It does not teach us to love Jesus, but rather to 
love what he loved. It does not teach us to follow 
him as an ultimate, but to follow what he followed 
and so come after him to the same result. It does 
not teach us the necessity of believing in Jesus as 
others interpret him to us, but rather of knowing 
him as he declares himself. He points us ever to a 
beyond ; the Bible teaches us to follow on in the way 
he points out, not stopping to adore him thinking our 
work done thereby. 

This error of mistaking a means for an end, cloth- 
ing the means with all the attributes and prerogatives 
of the end, is what precludes higher revelations in 
and through orthodox Christianity, which is handed 
down from generation to generation with no higher 
significations than it had years and years ago, and so 
does not meet the need and the demand of people to- 
day who are on higher mental planes. 

The lack in this regard is what is producing 
another interpretation and teaching, for demand ever 
produces supply ; and, by the same law, this supply 
which is forthcoming to-day is only to meet the de- 
mand ; is only for those who feel a need for more than 
is given them in ecclesiastical teachings ; is not for 
those who are satisfied there^vith. It is only those 
who hunger that can be filled. 

Without dwelling, therefore, upon the historical 
accuracy of these accounts of the chief personage in 
the Four Gospels, admitting even if desired that they 
are historically true and provable as such, it is main- 
tained that the true nature of such a being as is por- 



180 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

trayed under the name, Jesus, and the co-relative 
nature of the several events in which he is concerned, 
are in nowise affected either by proof or by lack of 
proof corroborative of the claim of historical accuracy; 
and that no teaching founded upon this claim does 
or can reveal them. 

The universality of the Bible extends to every 
character in it, even to the Jesus of the New Testa- 
ment ; and because of this universality they are, in 
their true significance, impersonal types which be- 
come personal with us only through our own develop- 
ment or evolution through the stages of self-con- 
sciousness. 

Given this perception of their meaning, of the 
meaning of that account or process in whicli the}^ 
have place, and we have a hold upon the Bible, and 
it one on us, which places it and ourselves in relation 
to it, upon a very different plane than the one tradi- 
tion has marked out for it and us. 

Studied in this way, from this point of view, new 
and ever new, higher and ever higher significations to 
its statements, to its characters and events open to us, 
leading deeper and deeper into its mysteries which 
unravel as we go and which point us as with fingers 
of light to the at-one-ment between its records and 
our own experiences ; between the end toward which 
they all tend and that which is the result of these 
experiences. 

What the Christian world observe as Good Friday, 
all the services in commemoration of the death of our 
Lord as it is phrased, are in consequence of and in 
accordance with views about an historical event ; just 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 181 

the same as is our celebration of the Fourth of July, 
only that one is religious and the other secular, and 
this observance of Good Friday or the day of Cruci- 
fixion is as wide of the higher significance of that 
event as is possible. 

When we consider the true, the universal imper- 
sonal in place of the historical, ecclesiastical Jesus, 
we see that his crucifixion begins long before what is 
recorded as such in the Gospels ; before his arraign- 
ment in the judgment hall of Pilate and execution on 
Calvary ; see that this is only its culmination its 
conclusion. 

He is crucified from the beginning ; but only then 
is crucifixion finished. The beginning of the son of 
man is also the beginning of his crucifixion ; of that 
process in through which he disappears that the Son 
of God may stand forth as the only begotten. 

Crucifixion is the dividing experience between 
mortality and immortality. Contrary in their nature, 
antagonistic to each other, these can never mingle and 
amalgamate, and this dividing line is the cross which 
stands between the tAvo ; the cross upon which the 
mortal must be crucified before he can pass from the 
one to the other ; from mortality to immortality ; from 
the power of mortal sense to the supremacy of im- 
mortal sense. 

If we trace the process from Adam to Jesus, the 
progress of the mortal from the Adam stage to the 
Jesus stage which finishes the process, and through 
which he is ripened for immortality, we find that he 
reaches it only by way of the cross ; find that he is 
brought to that cross by mortal sense, the natural 



182 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

sense and the natural man, that at this point he takes 
it up and bears it consciously and knowingly up the 
mount to its top, finishing there the work he is given 
to do ; and when we understand the crucifixion as it 
is recorded in the Gospels or in it in this higher sense, 
we shall see it is but an epitome of this process and 
its sequence. 

So seeing we shall find nothing to mourn over, 
but rather much for rejoicing ; for we shall see this 
final scene in the crucifixion which has been going 
on previous to the Jesus stage, as but the stage of 
victory for the mortal, for the son of man, not defeat; 
for he thus goes as it is written of him, and all the 
woe, all the sorrow is for them by whom he goes ; he 
triumphs over all. 

Beginning with the Adam stage, with the state of 
consciousness which is naturally governed by mortal 
sense, we find that consequent experience brings 
forth its thorns and thistles to this state of conscious- 
ness, to the Adam, necessarily ; and that these pains 
and pangs, these labors in the sweat of his brow are 
his portion because of what he is, not because of any 
change in him through his disobedience. 

Experience for him develops legitimately a higher 
than he, just as experience or what we call living de- 
velops the boy from the little child because the 
potential boy is with the child, waiting to be de- 
veloped. 

This higher than he is Enos, who is the type man 
in this process between the Lord and the Christ, be- 
tween Man as he is and his manifestation, who may 
be called the boyhood which sees more than the child 



TBE CRUCIFIXION. 183 

or the Adam sees ; who perceives or sees through what 
the child-Adam only looks at; who penetrates the 
real to the Adam and discerns the unchanging reality, 
the causative realm back of the changing experience 
which seems the only real to the child. 

Just as the child's world is its own in which it lives 
to the exclusion of a potential higher beyond, so the 
Adam is that childhood of the mortal where all things 
are to it as they seem ; and just as the boy begins to 
look beyond his boyhood to a larger world than his boy 
world, even as it is far larger than the child's world, 
so the boyhood of the mortal or the Enos begins to 
discern what was non-existent to the Adam ; a mean- 
ing to and cause for the experience which is living to 
him ; and his successor is the Noah, a still higher 
type which may be called the young-manhood ; the 
stage of majority, or the age where the mortal, by 
reason of growth, is able to understand and to begin 
to govern his own experiences ; begin to rule them 
instead of continuing subject to their thorns, their 
pains and penalities, as formerly. 

Just as a child is subject to all while a child, bu^Js 
released from his subjection when he is twenty-one, 
so the mortal grown to legal age, or the stage of re- 
sponsibility, must stand and act for himself, taking the 
consequences of all his deeds himself, understanding 
that those to whom he was formerly subject hold him 
so no longer because of his own growth beyond their 
right to keep him so. 

This Noah period is the stage of understanding in 
this process which is wlmt we now call living ; and 
the consequent responsibility is the cross therein 



184 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

which, when grown to, has to be taken up and carried 
to the end ; and crucifixion from this point is constant, 
continuing to the end of this process between mor- 
tality and immortality, which end is the final cruci- 
fixion. 

When a little child does that which its elders say 
is wrong, it is excused because it does not know any 
better. Its acts are the legitimate consequences of 
its natural impulses ; there is no intent to do wrong 
till it knows what wrong is ; hence it does no wrong. 

Acting naturally as a child, it is not a thief if it 
takes what belongs to some one else: it sees the 
article, likes it, desires it and takes it, and does not 
commit a sin because it knows no better; it is acting 
out its nature as a child. 

But the young man of twenty-one doing exactly 
the same thing, taking that which belongs to another 
because he likes it and wants it, does what the child 
is not guilty of ; he does wrong, commits a sin be- 
cause he understands what the child is ignorant of 
because he is a child ; and he understands because he 
is not a child ; because he has grown from childhood 
to the age of understanding, and consequently has 
responsibility where the child has none. 

Just as the child is not a thief because he is a child, 
acting according to his nature, the young man is a 
thief because he is not a child, but one who, through 
growth, has reached the stage where he is responsible 
for his acts ; and must receive and bear not only 
their consequences, but the consequences of his not 
doing as well as he knows ; for responsibility entails 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 185 

far more upon him than the acts of the child entail 
upon the child. 

Desire has not ceased with the young man of 
twenty-one because he is twenty-one ; the same desire 
belonging to the child is his, but greater and stronger ; 
he desires more than the child, more ardently than 
the child ; he has impulses just the same as the child ; 
but having what the child has not, the understanding 
of twenty-one, he knows that instead of yielding to 
these as the child does, he must control them because 
he is not a child ; because of the responsibility which 
is his because of what ho is, and which does not de- 
volve upon the child because of what the child is. 

The child experiences the penalty of ignorance, 
only ; of yielding to natural impulses because know- 
ing no better ; but he will experience, not only the 
penalty of yielding to his desires but the added one 
which understanding and consequently responsibility 
imposes upon him. 

This is the difference between the Adam and Noah 
stages in this process from mortality to immortality ; 
from this state of consciousness which we call living 
now, to purely spiritual consciousness. This is where 
the flood comes that washes away the old and makes 
the bringing forth anew possible. 

Such a flood can come no more, never again, 
for " the imagination of man's heart," as the Bible 
phrases it, " was evil from youth " ; only because the 
youth, the childhood, is in ignorance and knows no 
better ; the Noah, the young manhood, the age of 
understanding, does see and know better : hence must 
accept and carry responsibility to the end of that 



186 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

process which ends mortality ; ends what we call 
living. 

Seeing the Jesus as the ultimate of this process, 
we can see the grand significance of His declaration : 
" If any man will come after Me ; let him deny him- 
self and take up his cross and follow after Me. See 
how the understanding of Genesis opens up every 
statement recorded as having been made by the 
Nazarene ! 

No mortal can reach the Jesus stage at the end of 
this process which we call living, except he first 
deny himself, take up the cross of self-denial and 
responsibility, and follow after him till he gets to 
him ; and reaching him he must still follow after him, 
by the way of the cross, to the infinite, beyond. 

The primal necessity for the Jesus stage or state is 
self-denial; and this is first possible as a conscious, 
intentional act with a kuowledge of its significance 
and consequence, only to the Noah stage of the 
mortal ; to that understanding which sees and accepts 
the accompanying responsibility. The mortal must 
then deny himself the thinking and acting from 
natural impulse or according to the natural, the mor- 
tal sense, and must consciously and intentionally 
think and act according to spiritual sense instead, 
through understanding it as the true, the never mis- 
leading and the lasting. 

In other words, he must put off the old man and 
put on the new ; put off all that is mortal to put on 
the immortal. He must deny that which he sees and 
calls his self as the true self which belongs to man, 
because he understands it as the person representative 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 187 

of that ; and only through this denial can he follow 
after that true self till he finds it ; for so long as that 
which is seen as the self is believed to be the only 
and the true one, there can be no conscious, inten- 
tional following after another ; there is no incentive 
to do so. 

This self-denial — this denial of the sense-self 
through understanding and the spiritual self, which 
confronts the mortal when he has reached the age of 
responsibility through growth to the stage of under- 
standing, compels a turning from that which has been 
the only real to him up to that point, and facing 
squarely the other way or toward the immortal, the 
spiritual, following after it as the most desired. 

The only way to reach it and become consciously 
united with it, is the one pointed out in this declara- 
tion of the Nazarene, " Take up the cross and follow 
after me " to immortality. 

Every one of us must carry his own cross, the one 
upon which we must be crucified if we would go 
higher, when we have reached the stage of under- 
standing which enables us to see and take it up ; and 
it is the perception of our individual responsibility 
which enables us to take it up ; to voluntarily raise 
and bear it, knowing what is before us in conse- 
quence. 

Upon this cross of self-denial the old man, or what 
we have seemed and believed ourselves to be, must be 
crucified daily. 

All his carnal tendencies and desires, the results of 
ignorance, must be crucified and put to death; and 
so the mortal, the son of man, progresses along the 



1«8 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

way which leads to immortality, crucifying his self 
or putting it to death as he goes, and experiencing a 
constant resurrection from the death in a new and 
higher self ; one more in accord with the divinity of 
Man than those that have been crucified. 

This young manhood must grow into mature man- 
hood ; the mortal ripening for immortality, into the 
ripened; and this ripening process is through the 
intermediate degrees ; the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 
stages ; those of realization of the spiritual, immortal 
truth of being as opposed to the sense of being, which 
are stronger and more potent than the natural sense ; 
and which, in consequence, bring the mortal away 
from it and into that spiritual consciousness which 
belongs to the Son of God and which is immortality ; 
is the true living, or existence. 

He is brought there through this crucifixion, for 
realization of the truth of being demands destruction 
of the mortal sense of being ; and the increase of the 
one is in exact proportion to the lessening of the 
other. 

Through the bearing of this cross of self-denial 
only, is the one put out and the other put on ; and 
this journey, from the time we take up this cross, is 
up a mount ; is a climbing higher and higher till we 
reach the transfiguration waiting for us there ; reach 
that point where, through this putting off of the old 
and putting on of the new, we stand transfigured to 
ourselves ; no longer the natural but the spiritual ; 
no longer what we seem, but what we are ; no 
longer seeing ourselves through the veil of mortality 
but in the clear light of truth which reveals our 



THE CRUCIFIXION, 189 

divinity and illumines every remaining step of the 
way we have yet to tread. 

Which show us that final crucifixion and even its 
beyond ; shows us that it is but the lawful, the legiti- 
mate sequence to the taking up and bearing of this 
cross which, when so taken and borne, leads us ever 
up, nearer and nearer to the One I Am. Shows us 
that it is but a door opened that we may pass through ; 
the door which waits at the end of this mortal from 
the visible to the invisible and which ever opens 
at the knock of tlie cross-bearer who thus proves his 
right to enter in. 

He lays it down at the threshold, and passing 
through, receives his crown; that which is his in 
exchange for the one he has worn with the cross, and 
which is left with it ; receives the crown of immortality 
in place of the crown of thorns ; the reward which 
has waited from before the foundation of the world 
for its conqueror; for the one who through overcom- 
ing the snares and delusions which the world or mortal 
sense confronted him with, has come over it to that 
which is, and ever has been, above the world. 

The seed of Abraham produces the Christ ; for of 
the realization of the truth of being, of the true na- 
ture of Man and his Source which comes after the 
understanding of what they must be, is born that 
true, that perfected son of Man, that ripened mortal 
through whom alone the Christ or Man's divin- 
ity, and so the manifestation of God, can be shown 
to the world ; for as that divinity or Christ is the only 
begotten, the only Son of God, nothing contrary to 
the nature of God being in or belonging to him, so 



190 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

that perfected mortal in whom and for whom is noth- 
ing contrary to the nature of the Son of God, is the 
only begotten likewise ; is the sole product of this 
process which has brought him forth, all else having 
been destroyed on the way : and this perfect unity 
between the Son of God and the son of Man makes 
possible the Immanuel, or Grod with us^ in the world ; 
makes God' s nature, which is Man's divinity and so 
the Christ, present to the world. 

But alas ! its inhabitants know it not ! For dark- 
ness is over all the land where the cross with its 
bearer are ; shrouds even that mount on whose top 
they have changed places ; where the one who has 
borne the cross up, is up-borne by it in tui-n ; lifted 
by it away from that sense which is darkness into 
that eternal light unseen by those who can only see 
forms ; see only the cross and that which is left with 
it. 

This land of forms is dark to the natural senseof 
the natural man ; dark to that mortal sense which can- 
not penetrate what seems the only tangible. And 
so this cross with its bearer and the so-called death 
upon it, are equally dark. 

It can see only the seeming ; and so it sees the 
wearer of the crown of thorns only as the victim ; his 
true nature as the victor, this crucifixion as triumph, 
not defeat, are in darkness ; or unseen by those who 
see with that sense, for these are visible only to 
spiritual perception. 

This is the end foreseen and foreknown from the 
beginning prophesied by those who can see with the 
higher than mortal sense ; and the mortal while carry- 



THE GBUGIFIXION. 191 

ing on that work which is given him to do, that work 
by the doing of which he works out his own redemp- 
tion from that sense which includes sin, sickness, suf- 
fering, sorrow, and death, can see before him this 
final result of taking up his cross and following after 
that which is beyond the mortal. 

Can see that " the son of Man goeth as it is written 
of him," and that the only woe belongs to them by 
whom he goes, not to him ; he is no sufferer, no 
victim. He is the royal victor over all that is not in 
accord with the divinity of Man. He "goeth to 
the Father " and through that unity the Father and 
son are one and that one is the Son of God. 

No wonder that the cross is the Christian emblem ; 
yet is it not rather the Christ emblem ? The symbol 
of that which proceedeth from the Father to the Son 
crossed by that which proceededi from the Son to the 
Father? And so the figure which symbolizes the 
whole work, the All of the Universe ? So is the cross 
in the circle. 

Are we as worshippers in spirit, not in form, fol- 
lowers of the Cross ? If we truly are, we are followers 
after its meaning; after what it represents ; and the 
true follower must inevitably be a cross-bearer for 
only so can he find what he follows after. 

Do we worship a dying Jesus upon the cross ? No ! 
a thousand times no ! We worship that truth which 
is so represented, and as such worshippers we will- 
ingly, joyfully bear our own cross up the same mount, 
lay ourselves thereon, stretch forth our hands to 
receive the same nails, willing sacrifices that the 
glory of God may be made manifest ; for only through 



192 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the manifestation of our own divinity cometh that 
glory. 

We too must give up the ghost upon this same 
cross; we too, before giving it up, may cry out as the 
last utterance of mortal sense, " My God I My God ! 
why hast thou forsaken me ! " for the pangs through 
which come redemption may declare themselves thus ; 
but when that sense has made its last effort, given 
forth its last cry, this ghost of living — this semblance 
of life will pass ; for the work done through it is 
then finished. 

So we rise from the cross, unseen by those who are 
in the darkness which is over all the land ; for we 
are above and beyond it, glorified. 

And thus is that prayer of Jesus answered — "And 
now, O Father, glorify thou me thi7ie own self, with 
the glory which I had with thee before the world was." 
So we also put on the Godlike self which has ever 
waited for us. 



THE RESUBBEGTION AND ASCENSION, 193 



THE RESURRECTION AND THE ASCENSION. 

John xx. 2-10. 

The first day of the week cometh Mary Madgalene early, when 
it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken 
away from the sepulchre. 

Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other 
disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken 
away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where 
they have laid him. 

Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to 
the sepulchre. 

So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun 
Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 

And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; 
yet went he not in. 

Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sep- 
ulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie. 

And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen 
clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 

Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the 
sepulchre, and he saw and believed. 

For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again 
from the dead. 

Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. 

Acts I. 9—11. 

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he 
was taken up ; and a cloud received him out of their sight. 

And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, 
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel ; 

Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven ? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. 

13 



194 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Among the doctrinal teachings of past generations, 
the resurrection of the dead, as it has been called, 
holds important place, and it is one of the most 
difficult declarations to settle satisfactorily, leaving 
much to the faith which is ever the accompaniment 
of evangelical Christianity. Many say "I can see 
how my soul survives the body at death, but I cannot 
see how that body is to be resurrected when it has gone 
back to the earth of which it is but a form ; when it 
is resolved back to its composite elements." And 
this is the aspect of that declaration which ever 
confronts the most devout believer in the resur- 
rection of the body. 

Resurrection is defined by Webster as " the rising 
again from the dead ; the resumption of life." To 
understand the true nature of resurrection we have 
to decide one question ; is it something which belongs 
at and to the experience which we call death, the 
time when what we call the soul leaves the body 
so that the latter returns to its native dust, or is it 
part of a process which is continuous ? 

Is the resurrection after what we call death but a 
part of that resurrection which has been going on 
before death ? 

The definition given by Webster would point to 
this latter view as the true one; he says "The rising 
again from the dead," again, means repetition ; so 
if this definition is correct, resurrection after death 
is but repetition of former resurrection, and so it is 
not confined to that one experience which we, with 
our educated views of ourselves and the hereafter, 
call death. 



THE BESUBEECTION^NB ASCENSION. 195 

Acceptance of this view of the nature of resurrection 
necessitates a like view of death ; showing it to be, 
not merely an event at the end of Avhat we call life 
in this world, but that which is repeated or a process ; 
and further analysis from the basis of man's spiritual 
instead of material nature shows us that death and 
resurrection are inseparable; that one is ever the 
accompaniment of the other, and that they are 
attended by a third or Ascension ; shows that these 
three are a trinity in unity, and that that unity is 
the one process by which the spiritual nature of man, 
his divinity, is brought to light. 

This process, which is the unity of death, resur- 
rection, and ascension, is for the son of man, by means 
of which he outgrows mortality and enters into 
immortality ; it is illustrated in the Bible by means 
of its chief personages and events. 

These illustrations and accompanying teachings 
show us that this process is individual; that we 
individually pass through it, through all its several 
stages, growing out of and away from that which is 
limited and hence come to its end ; to that which is 
unlimited and endless. 

We can understand the death, resurrection, and 
ascension of the Jesus of the New Testament truly, 
only when we see him as the fruit of this process, and 
His death, resurrection, and ascension as its culmina- 
tion. 

Looking at Him as an exceptional individual, 
removed far from us by a divinity which is not ours 
or for us, we can never come near to Him or to His 
experiences through following him as an example ; for 



196 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

that divinity which was for Him only and not for us, 
puts successful emulation of Him out of our power ; 
and this being a theological result of the difference in 
our natures, the difference between that of Jesus and 
our own, how can we be justly condemned for falling 
short of that example in what we are, and equally short 
of His life and deeds. Why exert ourselves to come 
up to this level when we are debarred by our 
natures from reaching it ? 

But when we see this Jesus of the New Testament 
as the sequence of the Adam of the Old Testament ; 
when we are able to trace this process which begins 
with the Adam through all its intervening stages to 
the Jesus, we have the revelation of the events re- 
corded as those in which he is chiefly concerned, 
which shows us our own nature, what we are, what 
we mean, whither we are tending and what is beyond. 

It shows that we too can say as He did, " I came 
forth from the Father and am come into the world: 
again I leave the world and go to trie Father." 

This coming into the world and going forth from 
it, is but the progress of the individual identity to 
self-consciousness or self-knowledge ; to the knowing 
of all which makes it consciously one with the All- 
Knowing Mind of God ; and this process, which is 
ever progress, proves that only that which is fitted 
by its nature to survive alone does survive it, all 
else coming to its own legitimate end on the way ; 
and this survival of the fittest is the individual iden- 
tity which is eternal and indestructible because the 
image, the reflection, the individualization of the One 
Ego, the One I Am. 



THE BBSUBRECTION AND ASCENSION. 197 

This process is represented in this world of repre- 
sentation as a part of it, in birth and in death and in 
what lies between the two. An infant is born into 
the world, we say; but most of us acknowledge that 
that which is born, which is visible to us, is not the 
all ; that there is something or other with, or pertain- 
ing to that infant, which we do not see ; that it has 
its invisible side as well as the visible ; that this in- 
visible side came from a source above and beyond 
the human father and mother ; and that in this infant 
there is a unity of the invisible and the visible ; of that 
which is from beyond the world and that belonging 
to the world ; of that which is above the human father 
and mother and that which is of them. 

This infant, as such, is not senseless, yet it is in- 
sensible ; it is not without consciousness and yet it 
is unconscious. It has the capacity for self -conscious- 
ness because of what it is, for it is a perfect child we 
say; it is intelligent and capable of attainment. 

Its consciousness as an infant is unconsciousness 
of its future manhood ; it must reach that through 
development for which it has the capacity ; so the 
infant grows, as we say, but do we see it grow ? Its 
growth is the development of the invisible side, and 
what w^see is the visible registration of that develop- 
ment. 

It grows from infancy to childhood, from child- 
hood to boyhood, from boyhood to youth and from 
youth to manhood ; but all these were potential with 
it at birth ; they all belong to the invisible side of 
that which we see and call the infant, and because 
they were there at birth, before its coming into the 



198 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

world, they in turn come into the world through this 
growth which is their development or progress from 
the invisible to the visible. What is the growth of 
the infant but a continual death, resurrection, and as- 
cension, this death, resurrection, and ascension belong- 
ing to the visible side, to what we see, because the 
registration of the development of the invisible side ? 

The infancy dies or comes to an end ; has to do so 
for the childhood to appear, and the childhood is 
the resurrection from the dead infancy and the as- 
cension from it ; and this death, resurrection, and as- 
cension shows progress ; shows an increase of living, 
if that phrase is allowable, instead of a cessation ; 
for it is only infancy that is dead ; that which used 
the infancy for its own development and progress 
is not dead but more living or living more than 
ever because having developed a larger capacity for 
living. 

This larger capacity belonging to childhood is the 
resurrection from the dead and the ascension from 
that which was before the resurrection. Childhood 
is the ascension from infancy through death ; and is 
only the development of the invisible, reaching nat- 
ural limitations in its progress and passing beyond 
them. 

And this trinity in unity is repeated again and 
again all along the way from childhood to old age ; 
that process is a constant death, resurrection, and as- 
cension ; for the childhood in its turn dies and the 
boyhood is the resurrection and ascension from it, 
while the invisible, through this death, is enlarging, 
growing, ascending constantly along the line of self- 



IE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 199 

consciousness ; for the boy has far more of it than 
the infant. 

This growth from infancy to boyhood has been 
a constant increase of self-consciousness, because a 
constant development of the capacity for it ; and a 
higher and higher self-consciousness, a higher and 
higher seif-knowing, is the result of continued death, 
resurrection, and ascension ; for these but mark the 
passing limitations on the way to the highest. 
• These are in the world that is passed through by 
that which is invisible and whose progress is made 
visible because re[)]esented by the infancy, the cliild- 
hood, the boyhood, and the manhood ; or by what 
we call the infant, the child, the boy, the youth, and 
the man. 

When the full manhood is reached, it is the 
consequence of the deaths, resurrections, and ascen- 
sions on the way to it; it could not be except as 
their sequence ; except the infancy, the childhood, 
the boyhood, and the youthhood have died, each in 
its own day, and the death has brought the corre- 
sponding day of resurrection and ascension. 

These have been the successive steps by which it 
has come forth, and stands as possessor of that 
which was impossible to the infant ; of the higher 
self-consciousness, self-knowledge, with power to 
demonstrate it in the words and works which this 
progress from infancy has made possible ; and it is 
the natural accompaniment of manhood because it is 
the fruit of the seed of infancy. 

Has there been any loss of anything worth sav- 
ing on the way to this manhood ? Nothing is lost 



200 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

but the limitations which are passed to reach it. 
There has been no loss through death, for the accom- 
panying resurrection and ascension was compensation 
therefor, and only through death, only through all 
that death is, could the higher than that which pre- 
ceded it come. 

Now applying this illustration to what we find in 
the Bible as its teaching concerning the world, death, 
resurrection, and ascension, we begin with Adam as 
the infancy which must die, and see that there must 
be the accompanying resurrection from that death and 
the ascension above it ; and we see that this is the 
law for the son of man which must be fufilled or 
filled full ; see that he is so lifted up ; see tliat every 
death, every resurrection and ascension which lies 
between the unconsciousness of divinity and the 
consciousness of it, must be met, passed through and 
beyond ; and that only through this progress is the 
final ascension, that " to the Father," possible. 

We see this as the meaning of Jesus' declaration : 
" I came forth from the Father and am come into the 
world; now I leave the world and return to the 
Father." For back of this Adam and Jesus ; back 
of all the intervening stages, is the individual iden- 
tity which, as the expression or individualization of 
the One I Am, has capacity for that all knowledge 
which is Divine Wisdom ; and through this evolution 
of self-consciousness or knowing of the Self, this 
development step by step, this capacity is filled, 
and through the round of states of consciousness it 
finds its Self at one with the Only I Am because 
its likeness. 



THE RESUBBECTION AND ASCENSION. ^01 

Just as there is the invisible side to what we call 
the infant, the child, the boy, and man, there is the 
invisible side to the Adam, the Enos, the Noah, the 
Abraham, the Isaac, the Jacob, and to the Jesus. 

Just as the development of this invisible is regis- 
tered by what is visible to us as the child, the boy, 
the youth, and the man, so is the development of 
the Infiuite Idea Man, registered by the Adam- 
infancy ; the En OS-boyhood ; the Noah- young-man- 
hood ; and so on, till this process of evolution 
having brought forth this Highest Self, this Like- 
ness of God, of the One I Am, it, as the Christ, is 
the invisible side of the Jesus which is made manifest 
through that visible ; the Christ is made manifest 
through the Jesus, and this completed manifestation 
links those two names in an eternal unity as Jesus 
Christ, the visible and invisible in one. 

The Jesus being the register of the highest devel- 
opment, the whole process from Adam having brought 
him forth, he has to go as it is written of him, for 
as the son of man, he is to be glorified that God 
may be glorified in him ; or the death, resurrection, 
and ascension which has been constant from the be- 
ginning of the world, from the Adam-infancy, must 
continue till the son of man is lost through it 
in the Son of God ; or till this unity, Jesus Christ, 
the togetherativeness of the visible and invisible, is 
seen as the all that is from God through the son ; till 
the eternal fact that there is no separation between 
God, the One I Am, the only Ego, and the Son of 
God or Man, and between them and the Son of Man ; 
till they are seen as an everlasting trinity in unity, 



202 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

that unity comprising the All of Creation, Creative 
Power and Creator. 

Therefore there is still death, resurrection, and as- 
cension for the Jesus ; he must ascend to the Father ; 
or the manifestation of the everlasting unity between 
the Son of God and the son of man must be forthcom- 
ing ; for the Jesus must be glorified with that Self 
which belongs to the Son of God; hence the words 
of this all-knowing man in the world before this last 
and highest death, resurrection, and ascension — " I 
have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. 
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own 
self, which I had with thee before the world was," or 
which is for the son of man when he has grown to 
consciousness of his unity with the Father, the Son 
of God ; this growth being the registration of the 
development of the nature of man, the Evolution of 
Self-consciousness which belongs to the image of 
God. 

This final death, resurrection, and ascension for the 
mortal or the Son of Man, and which is but the con- 
tinuity of 'death, resurrection, and ascension from 
Adam, is conscious or sensible fact with Jesus, with 
the ripened mortal ; not an insensible or unconscious 
one as with his predecessors. 

The passage from infancy to childhood, from child- 
hood to youth and so on, is not sensed by that which 
is growing or developing. It is an unconscious cross- 
ing of an invisible line between two states which so 
merge into one. The infant does not cease to be an 
infant on a certain day and begin to be a child on 



THE RESUBBECTION AND ASCENSION. 203 

the next day. The infancy and childhood, though 
distinct as states, are not separate. 

There is no separation between the differing stages 
from infancy to old age ; they are but degrees in 
one state. So there is no separation, between the 
Adam-infancy and the Enos-childhood or between 
these and the following states, including the Jesus. 

They are but degrees of one state or process ; and 
just as infancy merges into childhood, that into boy- 
hood and so on, the Adam state merges into the 
Enos and so on to the Jesus or last stage through 
the constant death, resurrection, and ascension ; these 
three being ever together throughout the whole pro- 
cess and closing it also. 

But as the passage from infancy to childhood and 
from that to boyhood and so on is insensible, though 
a fact, so the passage from Adam to Enos and to 
Noah and so on is insensible though a fact which 
proves itself in the Jesus, the product of this con- 
tinuity ; but with him is this difference ; he can say 
" I know whence I came, and whither I go " and he 
will die, be resurrected and ascend consciously, 
sensibly. 

For him there is no unknown and mysterious here- 
after; with open eyes, knowingly, consciously, he 
gives up this ghost of life, this mortal semblance of 
living, and enters into the real living, the real exist- 
ence which has ever been, which he knows has 
always been when he declares " From before Abraham 
I am." Yet this death, resurrection and ascension 
is but the continuity of what has preceded it, natural 
or according to law as such. 



204 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

It is the death, resurrection, and ascension which 
stands by itself as the only one of its kind, because 
it is the conscious, the sensible, the known and under- 
stood one which can come only to the perfected, the 
ripened mortal, not to those less than he, for all be- 
low him have continuous deaths, resurrections, and 
ascensions through which they reach this last one. 

So says Jesus truly, " I lay down my life, that I 
might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but 
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down 
and I have power to take it up again." 

This conscious death, resurrection and ascension 
which belongs only to the mortal who finishes the 
work he is given to do, is what is portrayed to us 
through the Jesus of the Gospels ; and the observance 
of its meaning would be a far different procedure 
than the ecclesiastical observance of its letter ; for 
this observance is the living in accordance with it, 
being led of the Spirit to this same triumphant death, 
resurrection, and ascension ; growing in spiritual 
consciousness through growing out of mortal sense 
and its bondage till we, too, can say, No man and no 
thing taketh this life from me ; I la}^ it down of my- 
self only to take up the true and only life again. 

To truly follow after Jesus is to grow from this 
Adam-infancy through the states beyond it up 
and into that Jesus-consciousness — that manhood 
which knows what the infant-Adam could not ; which 
knows that there is no death or cessation to living ; 
that it is only a kind that ceases, that must cease for 
it has beginning ; but that the eternal, that which has 
neither beginning nor end, has preceded this kind, 



THE BESUBBECTION ANU ASCENSION. 205 

and will succeed it when the work belonging in 
this passage between is done ; when the work of 
finding the waiting immortality is finished. 

Truly following after him will show us that this 
last death, resurrection, and ascension, which looks 
like defeat and punishment to that sense too limited 
to see its nature, is really the triumphal entry of the 
Son of man into the kingdom prepared for him before 
the foundation of the world ; and which is fore- 
shadowed by the entry into Jerusalem. 

This is why Jesus is laid " in a new sepulchre 
wherein was never man yet laid." Such a death 
has never before been ; all previous deaths have had 
as their hereafter a higher mortal or continued 
mortality. 

This one has, as its hereafter, the immortal. This 
resurrection is the resurrection of the immortal from 
the dead or from overcome mortality ; of that which 
has passed through the world phase of existence and 
so ascends to its own, for it was never of the world 
though in it. 

This new sepulchre is hewn out of the solid rock. 
That is work, is it not? The work that must be 
done ; that is begun at the Adam stage and finished 
at this one, and so prepares this new sepulchre in 
which man was never before laid ; for it is the one 
that is ready only at the end of this work and so 
cannot be used before. 

It is so hewn out of the solid rock of actuality, the 
twin brother of reality ; out of all this which confronts 
the mortal on his journey to immortality, and which 
is the real and true to him because of his natural 



206 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

sense about it ; hewn out of that experience which is 
for him, a hard, undesirable can't-get-away-from fact, 
and which holds for him the pains and penalties 
belonging to it, through and because of which he has 
the needed impetus to carry him farther on the way 
to where he shall find this so-made sepulchre ; for 
every pang we have ever felt, every sorrow and grief 
we have ever suffered are but so many spurs to send 
us on our way toward that consciousness of our own 
divine nature which is immortality. 

And the overcoming of them, the rising above them 
to a higher plane of consciousness than that which 
lies this side of them, are so many strong blows upon 
this solid rock which, little by little, is so hewn away, 
making an opening in the hitherto impossible so that 
we can find our way in and through it to the ineffable 
beyond. 

This new sepulchre is for us all, my friends ! Are 
we doing that work which hews it out of the rock ? 
Are we so travelling toward it, knowing full well 
that it is the entrance to immortality ? That it is in 
the way, at the end of the way which leads to that 
Self which is one with the Father? And that only 
by passing through it we can be glorified with it ? 

In that new sepulchre we leave all, that has no 
place in that Self which waits on the other side. 
Only those coverings hiding that which goes higher 
will meet the gaze of those who are unable to see far 
enough to find that Self with which we are then 
glorified. 

Can we look forward to this finishing of our work 
unfalteringly and press on with quickened footsteps 



THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 207 

as that sepulchre at the end of the way grows more 
visible to us through this mortal mist ? Or do we 
allow what mortal sense calls suffering — the heart 
griefs which to it are agony, to cause us to continually 
look back instead of forward and so to strike but 
aimless and feeble blows upon that rock from which 
it must be hewn ? 

Do we allow a past which of itself is dead because 
of its nature, to dwell with us as our present through 
our fond clinging to it? 

So we roll a stone to the door of the sepulchre 
which can be removed only through resurrection. 

Let the dead past bury its own dead, that we may 
rise higher. O ! You who have suffered ! Who 
have felt the keenest agony mortal sense can endure ! 
Felt it till what seemed love, hope and peace were 
blasted and dead ; consumed till only the cold gray 
ashes remained ! 

Thank the Omnipotent and Eternal One that you 
have so suffered, and let those dead aslies bury their 
own dead; while you, resurrected from that dead 
suffering self, ascend higher and higher from it, nearer 
and nearer to that Divine Self which waits on the 
other side of that sepulchre ; and which will come 
fortli, a living, visible, reality, when the stone is rolled 
from the door. 



208 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN. 

Matthew xvi. 27. 

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with 
his angels. 

Matthew xviii. 11. 

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. 

Luke ix. 22, 44. 

The Son of man must suffer many things, and he rejected of the 
elders and chief priests. 
The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. 

John vni. 28. 

When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know 
that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself. 

John xii. 34. 

How sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up ? who is 
this Son of man ? 

A CAREFUL study of the New Testament reveals the 
fact that Jesus of Nazareth calls himself the " Son of 
man " repeatedly, far more frequently than the '' Son 
of God." Examination of these appellations from 
the basis of the principle outlined in Genesis shows 
the distinction without separation between them ; 
shows the distinctness yet unity between the Jesus 
and the Christ. 

Doctrinal theology has ever confounded the two, 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN. 209 

claiming for the Jesus what belongs to the Christ ; 
and the intensely rational men and women who have 
been unable to accept such teachings have gone to 
the other extreme and given the Jesus far less than 
his due. 

The underlying meaning of the Bible declares the 
natures of these two — the Son of God and the son of 
man — and also the nature of their unity. This is its 
significance from its first chapter to its last. If it be 
found and followed it will clear all myster}^ out of 
the way and give to each its own place showing the 
unchanging and eternal harmony between God, the 
Son of God and the Son of man, this trinity in unity 
being the all of creation, which, in its two halves, 
comprise the expression and the manifestation of 
God. 

A perception of the difference between the terms 
" expression " and " manifestation " is essential ; for 
this difference opens the way to an explanation. 

These are not synonymous in meaning and hence 
should not be used synonymously. They are not 
identical in meaning, yet are commonly so used. 
Expression is first or primal ; manifestation is its 
sequence and is secondary. 

For illustration suppose that a man with an inven- 
tive turn of mind, as we say, invents a machine for a 
certain purpose. The starting point of his invention 
is the capacity for it. 

He must have the ability and power to invent or 
there could never be an invention. Again that 
power must be active, not a passive possibility, or 
there could not be an invention. 

14 



210 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

Given this ability and power in operation or active, 
the natural consequence will be the invention which 
is the product or idea of the inventor through his 
inventive ability. 

The idea is the invention and is the expression 
of the inventor and of his ability and power. It 
expresses all equally. It is the complete result of 
these so far as expression goes ; that is complete. 

But although the invention, the idea, the expres- 
sion of the inventor and his inventive power, is com- 
plete and perfect, it alone is not enough ; for it is in 
and with him, in and with the inventor, and so is 
invisible. 

It must become visible to be known ; it must be 
manifested — manifested as a whole and in every part 
before the inventor's work is finished ; and the second 
half of it is just as important as the first ; for that 
first was only the creating ; good and perfect as far 
as it went, but not going clear through to the end. 

That which was created must be finished or made ; 
made manifest as the completion of the inventor's 
work. 

There must be shown what his invention is good 
for ; what it will do or what its nature is : and this 
is possible only through its manifestation. 

His invention must be seen in operation, must be 
visible, before his work is done and can be declared 
good and perfect all the way through. The inven- 
tion without this manifestation of it would be worth- 
less, would be a nonentity. 

This nmking after the creating, this finishing of the 
work, is the proof of the nature of the invention. 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN 211 

When what it can do is made manifest, it is mani- 
fested, and not before. 

Till that is done it is simply the ideal, having no 
practical value. After that is done the ideal has 
become the actual and has all value. 

For this manifestation to be possible, for it to come 
as the natural sequence to the idea, to the expression, 
something else is necessary ; something which stands 
between the two and is not either ; is neither the ex- 
pression, the idea, the invention, nor the manifes- 
tation of it. 

And it is as necessary as either, for it is the means 
by which the invisible is made visible. It is the model 
of the invention; that figure which represents it; 
which must perfectly represent it as a whole and in 
every part in order that what the invention is may 
be made manifest. 

But this model must be active ; the nature of the 
invention cannot be made manifest through a pas- 
sive model. It must act to show what the invention 
can do. 

It must act to show the nature and meaning of the 
inventor's idea. 

It must act to one definite end, yet one that is 
complex ; for when the model is a perfect one, is the 
perfect expression and representative of the idea, 
not that idea only will be made manifest or visible 
but the inventor as well, in that his nature through 
what he can and does do, is made manifest. 

When the model is perfect and is perfectly acted 
upon, its perfect action reveals or makes manifest 
the idea or invention both passively and actively. 



212 A CHICAGO BIBL:E CLASS. 

It shows what it is by showing what it can do, 
and it shows what it can do by showing its nature ; 
and when it manifests the nature of the invention it 
makes manifest what an inventor is as mind and what 
the inventive faculty or power is. 

So that this manifestation, which is one or whole, 
and which is the finishing of the work begun by 
the inventor, has its parts, one as important and 
as necessary as the other. 

And this whole with all its parts has come through 
that which is neither the inventor, nor the inventive 
power, nor the idea or invention ; something which is 
the sequence of these three and essential to the 
finishing of the work. 

The model is not the idea of the inventor ; it is 
only the expression of it ; is only its representative, 
perfect as such and therefore capable of being the 
medium for the perfect and complete manifestation 
when it is acted upon. 

It could not be left out of the whole without in- 
completeness instead of completeness ; and yet the 
expression and the manifestation are, either of them, 
more than it, complete in themselves as potentiali- 
ties without it. 

But the potential or possible manifestation could 
never be the actual, never become the fact without it ; 
and the visibility of the invisible, of the inventor, the 
inventive power and the invention or idea could not 
be forthcoming because of the nature of the invisible. 

Now let us apply this illustration and see what it 
shows us. We start with God as Principle — Mind, 
the One Creator, the One Inventor. The idea of 



THE SON OF GOB AND THE SON OF MAN. 213 

that Mind is Man, hence Man is the invention or 
expression of Mind and is the product of the power 
of Mind ; of the Creative power of God. 

As such Man is the full, complete, perfect, unchange- 
able and entire expression not only of God, Principle, 
Mind, but of the power of God ; of the creative power. 

Man as the image or reflection, expression of God, 
reflects or expresses all that God as Principle, as the 
One and only First Cause is. As such he is the idea 
of Mind through Thought, the creative power. As 
such he is the invention of the Almighty Mind. 

This idea being the expression of God is invisible. 
Manifestation must follow expression as its sequence. 
That God and man are, is the fact in itself. What 
they are, is the demonstrated fact through manifesta- 
tion. 

And this is the meaning of the answer given to 
Moses when he asks for the name of God, " I Am 
that I Am." 

The abstract truth becomes the actual truth only 
through manifestation of that abstract ; through the 
visibility of the invisible. Perception of this fact, of 
this meaning, opens the way for the understanding 
of these perplexing questions which so many are 
asking to-day. 

The image of God or Man, being the expression of 
God, is the created ; and the created is the idea. 

But this idea must be manifested ; or the created 
must be made finished ; and this finishing, which is 
as essential as the creating, is the end and aim of 
creation. 



214 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

The visible perfection of his invention is the aim 
of the inventor whose work is not done till this has 
been achieved. 

Between the idea of God — Mind, which is the 
created, the invention, and is generic man, and the 
visibility of this invisible or the manifestation of the 
expression, must be the model which is the means 
through which the manifestation is made ; through 
which it comes ; the means by which the invisible is 
made visible ; and this model is not, cannot be, either 
the idea of God or Mind, the expression, or the 
manifestation. 

Cannot be generic man, the invisible or the visibil- 
ity, the manifestation. It is distinct from either and 
both ; yet is essential to both. 

As the inventor needs the model, not for his 
invention or idea to make that what otherwise was 
not in itself, but only as the means through which 
that which is complete and perfect in itself as the idea 
is made visible, its perfectness made visible, so this 
model of generic man is needed as the means by and 
through which man's nature is made visible. 

The model must be as complete in itself as that 
idea or expression, the created, is complete in itself. 

Must be as perfect as the model as that is perfect 
as the idea. 

It must be a perfect representative of it, for the 
visible perfectness of the idea to be forthcoming. 

Any lack in the model of the inventor's idea, would 
prevent the manifestation of it ; would bar the way 
for the visibility of its perfectness and completeness ; 
would make impossible the visibility of its nature ; 



th:e son of god anb the son of man. 215 

yet it would remain as complete and perfect in itself; 
remain the unchangeable potential fact whatever the 
imperfection of the model. 

Just as there must be perfect accord or unity be- 
tween the idea and the model of it, so there must be 
perfect accord between that idea of Infinite Mind 
which generic man is, and the model of him which 
makes his visibility or manifestation possible. 

And just as given the perfect model of the inventor's 
idea the perfect manifestation or complete visibility 
of that idea is possible, is the natural sequence, so 
the perfect model of man, who is the idea of Infinite 
Man, has as its natural sequence, the complete mani- 
festation or visibility of God's idea. 

And just as the perfect manifestation of the in- 
ventor's idea through the perfect model includes the 
manifestation of the power of which it is the product 
of the inventive power, and of the source of the power 
or of the inventor, so the perfect and complete man- 
ifestation of generic man through his perfect model 
includes the manifestation of the power of which he 
is the product and the source of that power or God. 

All there is as the abstract reality. Creator, creative 
power and the product of both, is equally made 
visible or manifest through the perfect model. 

Has it not, then, its own place in the whole though 
not identical or interchangeable with any other 
part? 

It is not either the inventor, the inventive power, 
the invention or its visibility. It is distinct from 
each and from all of these, occupying its own place ; 
but it is inseparable from all of them. 



216 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

So the son of man or person as the model of generic 
man through which he is made visible or manifest, is 
neither man, nor the manifestation of man ; only the 
means through which the latter comes. 

Through application of this illustration we find 
God to be the inventor. Mind, generic man, to be the 
invention or idea through the inventive or creative 
power, Thought; the son of man to be the perfect 
model which is in as perfect accord or unity with the 
idea ; and the Christ to be that manifestation which 
comes through the perfect model and which is also 
complete and perfect because the visibility of that 
which is complete and perfect in itself. 

This Christ or manifestation, the visibility of the 
invisible, makes all that is invisible, visible ; makes 
God the Creator, the creative power, and man the 
creation, all visible. 

It is the likeness of each and all which completes 
the work, which proclaims it finished. 

It is the likeness of God ; it is the likeness of the 
power of God ; it is the likeness of the Son of God ; 
and these three are in unity as The Christ. 

Beginning again at our starting-point, God is 
entirely expressed in man, we say. Man is the Son 
of God. Then the Son of God is the representative 
of God and the son of man is equally the represent- 
ative of man. 

The representative is not and cannot be identical 
with that which is represented. The Sou of God or 
man is not God, neither can the son of man be man. 
The second is the representative of the fii'st in both 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN. 217 

instances ; and there is perfect accord between them 
of necessity. 

If man, the son of God, expresses or represents 
God, the son of man or the model equally expresses 
or represents man ; and through this accord or 
unity, the First Cause back of both becomes visible, 
and is found to be all in all. 

The Jesus of the New Testament calls himself 
again and again the son of man, and this is what the 
Jesus is ; the perfect model which is in perfect accord 
with that which it represents ; with the Son of God 
or generic man ; and as such is the means of or 
medium for the equally perfect manifestation of man, 
of the Son of God, and of God the Father; that 
manifestation which is the Christ. 

The question may be asked " Where do we get our 
authority for the statements made and illustrated by 
the inventor, his invention and their consequence ? " 
and the answer is by the authority of logical deduc- 
tion from our premise. 

That rule is the one which must be followed to 
answer satisfactorily the many questions sure to be 
raised by the presentation of the underlying meaning 
of the Bible. 

To give as answer to any question, any person's 
statement without showing that it must be true be- 
cause in accord with the principle involved, is to give 
no answer at all in the true sense of the word ; and 
is to substitute personal authority for the principle of 
things which alone can and must interpret them. 

The basic statement, " God as God is Principle, 
not person, though personal to us ; is the Source of 



218 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

all that is, and man is his image and likeness forever," 
followed out to its own conclusions through logical 
deduction will give this explanation of the son of 
man ; one surely needed to-day and especially by 
those who have believed because they have been 
taught that there is no difference between the Son of 
God and the Son of man ; no distinction between the 
Jesus and the Christ. 

The necessity of a working model of generic man, 
the Son of God, through which his nature and con- 
sequently he can be seen because so made visible, 
has been overlooked : hence all the condemnation of 
the Adam who is but the beginning of this working 
model. 

Perceiving God as Creator brings the perception 
that action or creating is inseparable from the Actor 
or Creator ; and that the created which expresses or 
images that of and through which it is, must as such 
expression," be also active. 

If generic man be the image or expression of God 
there must be action on the part of man which is the 
expression of God's action ; of the creative power. 
And there must be consequence to this. 

Man must be the image of his Maker in deed or in 
action as well as in being. Then man acts or does 
deeds and his action expresses ^or images God's ac- 
tion ; while the result of man's action and of God's 
through man declares " the Father worketh and I 
work," showing two works and two workers, yet but 
one in result, because of the unity between them. 

" God without the image and likeness of Himself 
in man would be a nonentity." If we accept this 



THE SON OF GOB AND THE SON OF MAN. 219 

statement as truth, why can we not see that it applies 
to man as well? Generic man without the image 
and likeness of himself would be equally a non- 
entity. 

These are necessary for his entity ; and " entity " 
signifies the particular nature of being ; hence these 
are as necessary for man's being or for man's actuality 
as they are for God's. 

The creative power of God, as Mind, is Thought, 
and generic man is the product of Thought and is 
Idea. This power of which he is the result is ex- 
pressed or reflected in him ; and that reflection or 
expression is his power, is his thinking power which, 
active, because expressing the activity of Thought, 
produces from him that which images him as he 
images God. 

Man's Son represents him, he producing that 
representative which establishes his entity, as God's 
son represents Him, God producing that repre- 
sentative which establishes His entity. 

And the likeness of the one to the other, for the 
likeness can only be after the image or expression 
is manifested through the son of man or th-e last 
representative. 

Through him is shown that man is like God, that 
man's power is like God's power, that the product of 
man's power is like the product of God's power ; and 
through the relation of one to the other and their 
common likeness is proven that God is all in all ; 
that God or Principle is Author of all and that all 
lives and moves in Him ; that God is the Alpha 
and the Omega, the beginning and the end. 



220 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

The son of man, the working model through which 
man is manifest, is the perfected personality which 
belongs to the world as a part of it. 

The son of man is the visible personality of man ; 
the Christ which is back of and in unity with that, 
is the personality of God and both are distinctly 
traceable from that one Principle which is God. 

God reproduces His own personality. Note that in 
this statement the personality of God is a reproduc- 
tion ; or something which is after or second to a pro- 
duction. 

Then that personality of God is preceded by some- 
thing else which is of God but which is not per- 
sonality. 

First production or expression ; then reproduction 
through the production or through the expression. 

Generic man being the production, the Christ is 
the reproduction by God through man ; but the 
Jesus or the Son of man is the reproduction from or 
of man ; and the two are in unity because of the 
unity of the two back of them; and this unity 
between the personality of man and the personality 
of God is the Jesus Christ; a unity in which the 
lesser is lost in the higher because of their like- 
ness to each other. 

The Christ is brought forth through man but the 
Jesus is the highest product of the forming power of 
the Lord God, the last and highest person as Adam 
is the first or lowest person. 

The son of man is mortal in that as the working 
model through which manifestation comes, he is for 
a purpose. He begins with the need for such model 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN. 221 

and ends when the need is met or when manifesta- 
tion is complete. Adam is the son of man equally 
with Jesus ; but Jesus is the Son of man perfected. 

As a part in the whole he has beginning and end ; 
but that whole in which he is as a part has neither, 
and is eternal. 

" The Son of man goeth as it is written of him," 
says the Nazarene. So the son of man is mortal or 
for time. And again "• I came to bear witness of the 
truth." Here the office of the son of man, of the 
mortal, is clearly stated ; " to bear witness of the 
truth." 

Is not that what is done by the working model of 
the inventions ? Does it not bear witness to "the truth 
of the invention, of the inventive power and of the 
inventor ? 

And does not Jesus bear witness to the truth, bear 
witness to the nature of man and his own nature 
when he says, " The Son doeth what he seeth the 
Father do " ? 

Does he not bear witness to the truth and declare 
the nature of the Jesus, of the mortal, when he says 
" The things concerning me have an end " ? 

And how true when he says '' The Son of man must 
sufEer many things and be set at naught." And 
how has the son of man been set at naught in these 
later days of higher revelation through believing the 
relative truth revealed, the absolute I 

He has been as despised, as rejected as he was nine- 
teen hundred years ago ; has been crucified afresh on 
all sides by those who condemn personality and who 
should acknowledge him for what he is. 



222 A CmCAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

To-day is declared a higher meaning to the Bible ; 
a meaning which is mathematically exact, and to-day 
its Jesus has come unto his own. 

He is delivered into their hands only to meet the 
fate which is their decree for him till understanding 
has supplanted ignorance. 

Luke says, " All things which are written of the 
Son of man shall be accomplished." And verily we 
are proving this to-day. The son of man or the mor- 
tal who is for time because for a purpose is forced into 
the place of the immortal and worshipped as such by 
some, by others is despised, rejected, crucified afresh 
by that ignorance and misconception which is all the 
more fatal because accompanied by that zeal which 
believes itself active in the cause of truth, even as it 
was when at the command of the high priest it de- 
stroyed that which pointed out the way of eternal 
life. 

The truth of being is invisible. The true inven- 
tion or idea is invisible ; it must become visible or 
manifested ; must be proven. 

Hence the necessity for that representative of it 
which shall bear witness to it, to its truth, to its 
nature, by its own truth. 

And just as the perfect working model or represen- 
tative is the true witness of the invention or the idea, 
both in what it is and what it can do, so the Son of 
man, the perfect working model, the representative 
of man, is the true witness for man, for w^hat he is 
and what he can do, or for his person and for his 
nature. 

Jesus declared what he was, the purpose which he 



THE SON OF GOB AND THE SON OF MAN. 223 

met and filled when he said, " I came forth from the 
Father and am come into the world : again I leave 
the world and go to the Father." 

The human personality which comes forth from 
the expression of God, generic man, and so is the 
medium for the manifestation of man and of God, 
continues till that manifestation is complete ; or is in 
the world for that purpose. 

When it is complete, when the divine personality 
or the Christ is wholly manifested through it, its 
work is done ; it has finished the work given it to do 
and disappears ; because through the perfect accord 
and unity between the perfected human personality 
and the divine personality, that unity is the All and is 
the Holy One of God. 

The things concerning the human personality, the 
mortal, the son of man, have an end ; but it ends in 
the divine. It goes to the Father. 

The question may be asked, " If Jesus as the Son 
of man is the human personality, what is the differ- 
ence between him or it and this personality which I 
am conscious of to-day?" 

It is the difference between a part and a whole ; 
between the perfected and the not yet perfect ; for 
perfectness is the aim of creation, and every part must 
be as perfect in its own wholeness as the great All is 
perfect. 

The first working model which alone fully repre- 
sents the idea which is the invention, and so makes 
the perfect manifestation possible, has to be made 
part by part ; and each part must be as perfect in 
itself as the whole is. 



224 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

The whole model cannot be, and so the whole 
manifestation be possible, till every portion of it is 
produced and is in its right place ; is where it belongs 
in its relation to the other portions ; for the whole 
model is one model with many members. 

Every wheel and screw and bar which is essential to 
the whole model must be as whole in itself and in its 
proper place. 

This personality which we are conscious of to-da}^ 
is only that which stops short of the perfect whole ; 
is the incomplete model, is not the whole, though 
good and right as far as it goes. 

It is the human personality which is on the upward 
way ; which is growing toward wholeness as the per- 
fect model for perfect manifestation of the divinity of 
man, or the Christ. 

As that which is not yet perfect, it can afford only 
imperfect or incomplete manifestation ; and it is our 
work to-day to recognize its true nature, and through 
this recognition consciously work for and toward its 
perfection ; our work to lift it up away from that 
level whereon our natural sense of things — the sense 
of a part which must be limited as compa'red with tlie 
sense belonging to the whole — has placed and held it. 

It is understanding which is the God-established 
partition between the true and false sense of person 
ality. Till we understand it for what it is, we do not 
lift it up. 

Our mortal sense about personality contains all the 
evil, all the error, all the not good. The true sense 
of it baptizes it, and it rises from the covering waters 
of understanding with the benediction, " This is my 



THE SON OF GOD AND THE SON OF MAN. 225 

beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye 
him!" For it speaks with its own voice to him who 
hath ears to hear. 

Our present personality is only a step on the 
Jacob's ladder by means of which we climb higher ; 
and as we climb higher we leave it behind ; yet per- 
sonality itself goes with us till at last it is on the 
topmost round. 

Our untrue sense about it is left below ; it cannot 
climb ; we climb only by getting above that sense. 

With our eye fixed upon the mark of our high call- 
ing we press forward. That mark of our high call- 
ing, that figure which stands as the representative of 
man's divinity, is the perfected personality, the Son of 
man, the Jesus which, as our example, we follow on 
after till this personality becomes or grows into that, 
and that into the divine. 

Our high calling is the manifestation of generic 
man's divinity. The mark of our high calling is the 
expression of generic man's humanity ; and these two, 
the divine and the human, the personality of God 
and the personality of man, the Christ and the Jesus, 
stand at the end of the world or at the end of that 
process which has brought them forth, in perfect 
accord with each other or in unity ; and that unity is 
the Holy One of God which is the All. 

" When the Son of man cometh in the glory of his 
Father," when the personality bodies forth the beliefs 
and errors of mortal sense no longer, but presents 
instead the perfect representation or model of man's 
true being, then shall creation be accomplished. 

Then shall the personality which is man's humanity 
15 



226 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

be glorified with his divinity; and the Son of "man, 
that which came down from heaven, shall ascend up 
into heaven and reign on the right hand of the 
Father ; for man's divinity and man's humanity belong 
together, and what God has joined together let no 
man put asunder. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHBIST. 227 



THE DIVINITY, HUMANITY, AND OFFICE 
OF JESUS CHRIST. 

John xn. 44-50. 

Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on 
me, but on him that sent me. 

And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. 

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on 
me should not abide in darkness. 

And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him 
not : for I am not to judge the world, but to save the world. 

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that 
judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge 
him in the last day. 

For I have not spoken of myself ; but the Father which sent me, 
he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should 



And I know that his commandment is life everlasting ; what- 
soever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I 
speak. 

John xvii. 5. 

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with 
the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 

In the previous lecture it was endeavored to show 
what the Son of man is that is mentioned so often in 
the New Testament; why Jesus so called himself — 
According to the record — and the place in the whole 
which is from God as Principle or Self-existent Cause, 
of this perfect model of Man, the Son of God. 

Recognizing the necessity of a perfect working 



228 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

model of the invisible Idea which man is, in order 
that what he is as such, as the idea of Infinite Mind, 
may be manifest or visible, in order that his nature 
may be demonstrated, we can see that the Jesus of 
the New Testament fills this position, as the perfected 
person. 

See that as this perfect model he is our example ; 
the example of what we have to attain to through 
growth ; growth from the incomplete to the complete. 

But the question naturally arises whence comes 
this perfect model ? and this we will try to discover. 

The Idea which is the created is the product of that 
Mind which is God; tlie effect of that Principle 
vhich is the All-Cause. 

This Idea, or invention of ^the Inventor, Mind, 
which is generic man, is created through the " Word" 
— the " God said " — the creative power of God or 
Thought. 

The created of God, the product of Mind through 
the power of Mind or through Thought, is the Idea, 
generic man, invisible because of its nature ; for it, 
as the expression of God, is like God in nature ; and 
we recognize that God without the image and like- 
ness of Himself in man would be a non-entity. 

If this necessity of entity belongs to the nature of 
God, it must belong equally to that which expresses 
and so represents God ; and this fact, the necessity of 
entity, must obtain throughout all that is from God 
as the One Principle ; or throughout creation as a 
Trhole. 

Hence, generic man, the invention of the inventor, 
the Idea of Infinite Man, must have entity. 



DIVINITY ANT) HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 229 

Complete as Idea, that alone is not enough. God 
is complete as God abstractly ; but that is not enough. 
There must be entity. 

According to Webster, " entity " means " the 
real being whether in thought or in fact." So Man 
as the image of God, the idea of Infinite Mind, is the 
real being in thought which is to be the real being 
in fact through his own entity. 

If " entity signifies the particular nature of being," 
we have here the key, not only to the model of man, 
but to the method of its production. This one word 
"particular" is the clue. 

Beginning with God — Principle — Mind, this is, in 
itself, general and is non-entity. It must be expressed 
for entity, and in expression is particular. 

In other words that which is in itself general is 
made individual or particular in man ; this entity of 
God in man showing the particular or individual 
nature of God, as man, the whole which has this 
nature, shows the general nature of God ; and man's 
entity must show his particular or individual nature. 

Let us try to see for a moment the distinction 
between the two sides or parts of that which is one ; 
the generality and the individuality. 

God and the nature of God, the general and the 
particular are both expressed in man and so in man 
God has entity ; and man, this expression, must be, 
in consequence, both general and particular ; or must 
be first generic and then individual. 

Man, in being, must express God generally ; in the 
nature of his being must express God individually or 
particularly. 



230 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Now if entity signifies the particular nature of 
being, and if entity is necessary as distinguishing the 
particular from the general, this fact must apply to 
man as well as to God ; and man must be expressed 
in the same manner and for the same reason that God 
must be expressed ; for without the image and like- 
ness of himself he would be non-entity ; and this 
expression must in turn be both general and par- 
ticular. 

Man must have his general and his particular or 
individual entity as must God. Therefore man's 
expression will be both general and particular or 
universal and individual. 

The entity will signify the particular or individual 
nature of man. Not losing sight of this point will 
enable us to see the rest. 

If God would be non-entity without expression of 
himself, equally so would man be non-entity without 
expression of himself. 

And if the expression of God constitutes the en- 
tity of God, equally so must the expression of man 
constitute the entity of man. 

And if God is made manifest only through man, 
that manifestation is impossible except man be ex- 
pressed ; for otherwise man would be non-entity, and 
God could not be manifest through non-entity. 

It is the relation to each other of the abstract and 
the concrete. While the concrete is not necessary to 
the abstract fact, as such, it is necessary for the 
manifested fact, for that is but the abstract fact 
made visible : and the concrete stands between the 
invisible and the visible to this end. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 231 

So the entity of God the abstract, in man the con- 
crete, makes this concrete the medium for the mani- 
festation of both the general and the particular nature 
of God ; makes man the necessity to God's visibility ; 
and to this end man's entity or expression, which 
signifies the particular nature of his being, is all 
essential. 

Now as man, expressing God, and so of necessity 
what God is or the nature of God, is both general and 
particular, or generic and individual, so his expression, 
which by the same necessity must express what he is 
or his nature, is both general and particular; and the 
manifestation of tlie abstract or God will come through 
this expression of man's in both the general and the 
particular. 

Hence this outcome of it all, or the manifestation, 
will be general and particular, and will be the uni- 
versal and the individual Christ. 

The idea of Infinite Mind, generic man, has that 
nature which expresses God's nature. 

This idea is the entity of expression which has its 
two parts. It, as the expression of Being, is one part ; 
its nature, as such a being, is the other. 

As the expression of Being, of God, it is general 
or generic ; as the expression of the nature of Being 
or God, it is particular or individual. 

This idea, man, is inseparable from God as the in- 
ventor's invention which is his idea is inseparable 
from him ; and as the invention, because of this fact, 
because it lives and moves and has its being in the 
inventor, must be represented to show or prove its 



232 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

nature, so must man, the idea of Infinite Mind, be 
represented to show his nature. 

And just as the representative or model must be 
constructed part for part and as a whole according to 
the nature of the idea or the invention, for that to 
be made manifest through it, just so must the rep- 
resentative or model of man be constructed part 
for part and as a whole according to the nature of 
man for that to be manifested through it. 

And this model which is constructed according to 
the nature of man will be particular or individual be- 
cause that is particular or individual. 

Idea is in itself generic ; in its nature it is particu- 
lar ; therefore the expression of its nature must be 
also particular or individual. 

The idea of Infinite Mind, man, is generic ; the 
nature of man is particular or individual ; hence the 
manifestation of man will be the manifestation of his 
nature ; and this will be individual, coming through 
the individual expression of that nature ; while the 
general ever includes the particular. 

If this is recognized the individual Jesus will be 
seen to be the representative of the nature of man, 
through which that nature is visible ; or that figure 
which as person is the son of man, and back of which is 
that nature which is the son of God ; that nature of 
man which expresses the nature of God, and which is 
the Christ, or the Likeness. 

And the particular or individual is in the univer- 
sal, the general, the whole ; and this whole, this 
general, can and will be seen or be visible only- 
through the individual. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHBIST. 233 

Now to trace from our starting-point the dual 
nature of generic man which must become visible. 

Man as the reflection or expression of God is not 
and cannot be Deity or God ; is one remove from 
God, or is human. 

His humanity is his distinctiveness from Deity ; 
yet as the expression of Deity or God he is divine. 

He is the divine idea of that Deity which is mind, 
and as such idea is human. 

This dual nature of man's, the divine and the 
human, will be manifested when he is manifested; 
for the divinity and humanity of generic man must 
both be visible. 

If man must be demonstrated to be the actual 
fact, though as generic he is the potential fact, his 
nature must become visible ; and that nature must 
have its representative as the medium for that vis- 
ibility ; and this representative must express both 
the divinity and the humanity which together con- 
stitute the nature of man. 

This representative, is the Jesus, the Son of man, 
who, as the entity of expression from man, is both 
divine and human, in that representing both the 
divinity and the humanity of generic man these are 
both manifested through him. 

This divinity and humanity being ever in unity 
and constituting the nature of man, there must be 
like unity in the expression of man or in the son of 
man ; and so the complete manifestation of man is 
possible through this unity of expression ; through 
this perfect model, Jesus. 

The humanity of man is less than his divinity ; 



234 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS, 

his divinity is ruler over his humanity, for that is 
only his distinctiveness from God ; while his divinity 
is the expression of God's nature and is the All-pow- 
erful. 

So we have in the model of man, the person, Jesus, 
the expression of both man's humanity and his 
divinity ; but the last is ruler over the first. 

Therefore we see in this perfect model of man the 
continued victory by the divinity over the humanity, 
and this is the meaning of all the works recorded of 
Jesus even to his final resurrection and ascension ; 
works possible to every one of us as those who are 
approaching the Jesus perfection through growth, 
becoming perfect even as he is perfect, in proportion 
to our progress in this direction; the progress de- 
pending upon the ruling of our humanity by our 
divinity at the point where we are ; or in our pres- 
ent state of consciousness. 

" In Jesus experience, the human element was ex- 
panded and absorbed into the divine." In our ex- 
perience the human element is being expanded and 
absorbed into the divine ; and this is the difference 
between us and Jesus. 

We are on the way to what he was, or is, and 
reaching that perfectness, his experience will be ours 
in the final passing over from human sense to divine 
sense only ; from human consciousness to divine con- 
sciousness only. And this is the final at-one-ment 
by which we are as God. 

The human consciousness is by comparison a 
limited consciousness, because man's humanity is 
his limitation. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 235 

He is less than God as effect is less than cause. 
Infinite mind is beyond Infinite idea; and this 
lessness of man's — to coin a word — is his humanity. 

But man, the Infinite Idea, is in Infinite Mind; 
lives, moves, and has his being in it ; so his humanity 
which makes him distinct from God, is in or sur- 
rounded by that divinity which expresses God ; the 
human consciousness is in and surrounded by the 
divine consciousness ; and the greater must and will 
rule the lesser. 

If man reflects the creative power, the power which 
belongs to him and is active in him, is the reflection 
of the creative power, but not it. 

It must be distinct from the creative power of God 
or mind, yet inseparable from it because expressing 
it. There is the same distinctiveness between it and 
the creative power that there is between man and 
God. 

Therefore its product must be distinct from the 
product of God's power, the product of the creative 
power, for this distinctiveness must run all the way 
through creation, and here we have the origin of the 
son of man, the mortal, the model of man which 
expresses him and through which his manifestation 
or visibility must come. 

Man is the product of God's power ; of the creative 
power. Man's son, that which expresses him, is the 
product of his power; and this son of man, this ex- 
pression, this model, is brought forth by him through 
his power step by step, or stage by stage, by degrees 
to fullness just as the Son of God is brought forth. 

Just as the Son of God is the product of the 



236 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Thought of God, the sou of man is the product of the 
thought of man. 

The Son ot God is the Idea of God ; the son of man 
is the idea of man. 

And when the idea of man is the perfect image of 
him, is his counterpart, it will be the perfect corre- 
spondent of the idea of God and in perfect unity wiih 
it through its likeness. 

As the son of man is the product of man's power 
and man's power is produced and sustained by God 
and God's power, the son of man is produced and 
sustained indirectly by God and God's power ; and 
hence is the deflection of Being, as man is the 
reflection of Being, because deflection is through 
reflection, the last being the deflecting medium. 

This last, that which is visible to us now, is some- 
thing that has to be rightly viewed or understood. 
And only through such right view or understanding, 
is the perception of what it represents possible. 

When the model of an invention is taken to be the 
invention itself, that is the error ; and this error does 
not change in the least what the model is in itself ; 
it only prevents the understanding of it. 

God's — Mind's thought produces that idea which 
is the Son of God, and is God's image. Man's 
thought produces that idea which is the son of man, 
and is man's image. 

When man's thought is the same as God's thought, 
when the tivo are like^ the products of each, or the 
ideas are like ; and so this son of man is like the Son 
of God. 

Through their likeness to each other they are in 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 237 

unity, the unity being the Holy One of God, God 
being the cause or source of all product, direct and 
indirect. 

God — Mind is the knower and man is the being 
who may know through his own power. He has the 
thinking power for his own ; it is the expression of 
the creative power. Through it he thinks thoughts 
and produces in consequence ideas. 

Thinking the thought of Infinite Mind he is acting 
in unison with that mind, and his production or idea 
will be the perfect counterpart, inevitably, of God's 
idea. 

Every idea of man's which precedes and is less 
than the highest is but the image of a part or degree 
of man ; as every idea of the one mind which precedes 
and is less than man is not the image of the All of God, 
but only of a part or degree of God. 

If " man is the sum of creation," man is the sum 
of the ideas of the Infinite mind ; the one or whole 
which includes them all. And so the Son of man is 
the sum of man's ideas, the one or whole which in- 
cludes them all. . 

Hence we do not, any of us, see to-day the Son of 
man ; only a son or an idea which is less than he ; 
a mortal, not the mortal ; a person, not the highest 
or perfected person. Just as when the perfect 
model of the invention is constructed, the work is 
done part by part ; all parts going to make up, going 
into the complete model. 

As man, the Son of God, is the entity of God's 
ideas, is more than any one of them, so the son of 



238 -4 CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

man is the entity of man's ideas, more than any one 
of them. 

He is the complete product of the thinking being 
in its progress from the least to the highest idea of 
itself. 

When the highest is reached, the perfect model or 
perfect visible representative is the result, because 
the entity of his ideas is then at one with the entity 
of God's ideas. 

" Man is the infinite idea forever developing 
himself." 

When man has developed the true and perfect idea 
of himself through the true and perfect thought of 
himself, he has brought forth the likeness of God and 
God has reproduced his own personality through him. 

Then God is made manifest, for then is man con- 
sciously as God, and his humanity is swallowed up 
in his divinity which is eternal. 

Jesus is the divine human made visible, the human 
being the seen and the divine the perceived, because 
operating through the human. The perfect model 
of that one being, man, who, though one in being is 
dual in nature, had and will have, as his office, the 
revelation or manifestation of generic man and of 
his cause or source. 

Hence he represented and will represent both the 
divinity and the humanity of generic man. 

Hence, through his operations as the working model 
he afforded proof that the divinity is higher than 
the humanity and is master over it. 

By means of him, when he comes, for he is in the 
future for all of us, this fact will be demonstrated 
in its fullness. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 239 

Till then, between the now and the then, it must 
be demonstrated so far as we have the capacity so 
to do ; a demonstration which can increase, can rise 
higher and higher only as now Ave allow our divinity 
to rule our humanity. 

Our human nature is the least ; is what we must 
stand upon as under our feet. Our divine nature is 
what we must, so standing, constantly reach up to. 

Jesus' whole history as recorded in the New Tes- 
tament proves this. The history of the disciples, 
those following him as their example, proves it also. 
The' history of the apostles, those who grew out of 
following the visible or the human as example, and 
followed the invisible or the divine for the same 
purpose instead, proves it likewise. 

And all that we see around us, all the commotion in 
the world, all the tearing down and building up, all 
the overthrowing and the substitution but represents 
the struggle between humanity and divinity ; for 
there must and will "be turning and overturning till 
he whose right it is to rule shall reign." 

Till the divine nature rules the human nature, 
strife will continue. When its reign is established, 
peace will prevail and not before. And through this 
process the nature of the Infinite idea is being mani- 
fested. 

Many movements to-day are efforts to this end ; 
efforts which, though often misdirected and mis- 
governed, are yet, in tlieir aim, in the highest pos- 
sible direction : and some of them are of the greatest 
practical value ; for they point out how, consciously 
and immediately, to set to work to let the divine rule 
the human. 



240 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

That IS best which teaches, not belief in creeds, 
but the necessity of understanding from the basis of 
principle. 

This understanding in proportion as we gain it, 
will bring us to do what is demanded of us ; bring 
us to lift up the Son of man instead of degrade and 
reject him. 

We are crucifying him, crucifying the mortal afresh 
every day through our ignorance of his true nature. 
When we see that the model is essential as a part of 
the whole, see that it is and does or acts in perfect ac- 
cord with that which it represents, we shall see a new 
meaning to the words recorded of Jesus addressed 
to those who did not understand him — " I am from 
above ; ye are from beneath." 

" He that sent me is true ; and I speak to the 
world those things which I have heard of him." 

" When ye have lifted up the Son of man then 
shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of 
myself ; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak 
these things." 

When we have lifted up our present personalities 
through our understanding of their true nature 
instead of degrading them through our ignorance, 
then we shall know the true nature of the Jesus as 
that perfect human personality which does nothing 
of itself but is acted upon by that divine personality 
which is back of and beyond it. 

And through this perfect divine human, through 
this unity wliich makes it possible, the truth which 
frees from all ignorance and its consequences comes; 
that truth which is then possible to be known by us 
and we then able to taste of this freedom. 



DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST. 24A 

Jesus speaks of " when the son of man cometh in 
the glory of his Father." 

When we gain the true idea of the Son of man, 
when we understand him for what he is, then h^ 
comes to us in tlie glory of that which he represents, 
not as having any of his own ; for the Son of God 
whose model and representative he is shines through 
him in his own glory. 

When we so truly behold him, we shall behold his 
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth. 

To-day we see in a mortal, those errors and evils 
which are the consequence of that sense belonging 
only to human consciousness ; and because the divine 
does not yet rule the human. 

When we understand the son of man, the mortal, 
we shall see him as pure and as perfect as that which 
he represents. 

We shall see none of those errors or evils in him 
because with him the divine does rule the human ; 
and the human sense from which they all sprang as 
a consequence is lost in the divine sense and they 
are not. 

To this end must we press forward, dying daily to 
the human sense of ourselves, rising daily to the 
divine sense of ourselves. 

Through this constant resurrection from the dead 
we too shall ascend to the Father ; that Father in 
heaven which is the true, the divine self with which 
we shall consciously become one. 

16 



242 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE ATONEMENT. 

Ephesians II. 13-22. 

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made 
nigh by the blood of Christ. 

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken 
down tlie middle wall of partition between us : 

Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of com- 
mandments contained in ordinances ; for to make in himself of 
twain one new man, so making peace ; 

And that he might reconcile both imto Grod in one body by the 
cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 

And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and 
to them that were nigh. 

For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the 
Father. 

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God ; 

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a 
holy temple in the Lord : 

In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God 
through the Spirit. 

The doctrine of vicarious atonement, which is one 
of the essential foundation stones in modern Chris- 
tianity, is one of the difficulties in the way of those 
rational, well-intentioned, and unprejudiced persons 
who are honestly desirous of accepting this Chris- 
tianity as the highest and best possible religion to live 



THE ATONEMENT. 243 

and die by ; as the teaching which emoodies the high- 
est truth, and so the safest guide to the, as yet, un- 
discerned beyond. 

The declaration that one person can suffer the 
penalty due another on account of that other's acts, 
and which is the legitimate consequence of those 
acts, seems hardly reasonable or just to those who 
look at it impartially. Our civil law is based upon, 
and is intended to carry out, the principle that the 
guilty alone shall suffer ; and we claim that this is 
justice, that it is unjust for any one to experience 
the penalty of violation of law who has not violated 
the law. With all the shortcomings and mistakes 
in the carrying out of our governmental laws, we 
recognize the abstract justice upon which they are 
based, see that what is right for one is right for all, 
that what is wrong for one is wrong for all, so far as 
acts are in conformity to or in violation of that law 
which is for the equal good of all. 

If we, as a people, rightfully expect and demand 
justice from the all for the all, how much more shall 
we expect it from that Divine Power which cannot 
miscarry in its dealings with mankind as does that 
which is the product of mankind! If, within us, 
there is an inborn and ever-abiding demand for and 
recognition of justice as the underlying basis for all 
that shall endure, how can we help expecting, nay, 
demanding, as an unalienable right, that equity which 
must be ours from a God who is no respecter of 
persons. 

It is only for those who are ruled by their emotions 
that vicarious atonement is satisfactory, for they do 



244 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

not use reason. Their feelings are stronger tnan any 
sense of justice, and because of those feelings they 
accept the doctrine and do not allow themselves to 
examine it outside of or apart from them. But for 
those who are not so ruled, who want the right only, 
whether to their own profit or loss, this sense im- 
periously demands satisfaction and will not down at 
the bidding of ecclesiasticism. 

According to our civil law, if a man commits a theft, 
he is the one to suffer the penalty of the law he has 
violated ; one enacted by the people for their own 
protection. While another might be willing to take 
upon himself this penalty if the thief might escape it 
thereb}', the law would not so be satisfied ; for this 
law is not merely that punishment shall follow theft, 
but that the thief is the one who shall experience it. 

So, the atonement pioffered by another who is will- 
ing to suffer in that thief's place could not possibly 
meet and fulfill this law ; so it would be perverted, 
and would also be a respecter of persons if it accepted 
the suffering of one who had not violated the law in 
place of that of the one who had. 

Any one can see the pernicious results which 
would follow such an application of our civil law : 
see that it would be perverted instead of fulfilled ; 
that the unselfish would always be stepping forward 
to take the place of the guilty, who would thus only 
be encouraged to continue in their violation of 
the law. 

Is to save a man from the just consequences of his 
own acts, the way to redeem him from the desire and 
intent to commit them ? Would it not rather en- 



THE ATONEMENT. 245 

courage him to continue them ? Must not his desire 
and intent be overcome and can redemption from 
legitimate consequences come any other way ? If 
this law represents the unchanging and immutable 
sequence of cause and effect, can it be fulfilled if 
perverted ? 

The law punishes theft ; it cannot punish the inno- 
cent as it represents the consequence of an action for 
those who so act, and the protection for those who 
do not. It works both ways is for those who do 
evil — as it is called — and those who do not. It visits 
upon all the inherent consequences of their own 
deeds or manner of living ; ensures peace and pro- 
tection to those who do well, and painful experience 
to those who do evil ; and because of its nature, it 
cannot respect persons, for this would imply the 
power of choice, and law has no such power. It can- 
not select those whom it will punish and those whom 
it will screen. It is impersonal and hence must 
work impersonally. Is the law of God less than the 
law of mankind ? 

According to doctrinal teaching it is. It is the 
will of a personal being, who satisfied his own anger 
by putting the innocent to death for the guilty, and 
this view of God and of the law of God in operation, 
puts Him and it upon the plane of despotism purely, 
and as despotism in the world has ever led to revolt 
from it through the rousing of the sense of justice in 
those tyrannized over, so, sooner or later, this Godly 
despotism will in turn be revolted from, and mankind 
will work its own way to freedom from it. 

God as a despot can never be loved, and the attempt 



246 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASSr 

to reconcile these opposite aspects, the despotism and 
the Fatherhood of God, makes ecclesiastical Christi- 
anity a piece of patchwork in which the several parts 
are forcibly joined together and so are plainly seen, 
instead of the seamless garment where no joinings 
are visible and which is ever the accompaniment of 
truth. 

The feeling, largely predominant, with those who 
believe in vicarious atonement, is gratitude ; a high 
and noble feeling which, when it is intense, shuts out 
a sense of equity. This feeling of gratitude experi- 
enced by the othodox Christian because of the self- 
sacrifice and abnegation of Jesus who laid down his 
life for his sake that he might be saved from eternal 
suffering, blinds him to the injustice manifest in such 
an act. He sees only the suffering Jesus hanging 
upon the cross, enduring the pain which should be 
his because Adam disobeyed the command of God, 
dying to save him from perdition, and his whole soul 
rises up in gratitude and goes out in worshipping 
adoration toward this being who could make this 
stupendous self-sacrifice. 

" While this feeling is praiseworthy and by no 
means to be condemned, it is experience because the 
emotional nature only is touched and the rational has 
no share in it ; and sooner or later this will assert its 
claims and demand satisfaction also. When it does 
it questions, " Why should I be condemned, judged 
guilty for what some one else has done ! What have 
I to do with Adam's disobedience ? Does not its 
consequence belong to him justly ? Why should it 
be visited upon me? While I have shortcomings 
enough of my own, I do not see why I should suffer 



THE ATONEMENT. 247 

for that with which I never had anything to do." 

But ecclesiasticism says : " You must not question ; 
You can be saved from damnation only through this 
atonement ; and except you believe in it you throw 
away your only chance of salvation." And in obedi- 
ence to this authoritative declaration the rational 
nature is throttled so that it shall not cry out again, 
and our emotions carry us toward that heaven where 
it has no place, for it could never occupy itself with 
carrying palm branches and crying " Alleluiah," or 
be satisfied with a white robe and a golden crown. 

This doctrine of the Atonement is the accompani- 
ment of the literal rendering of the Bible which 
makes the Adam of the second chapter of Genesis 
the first man, a literal man living in a literal garden 
of Eden, from which he and his wife are expelled 
because they did something they were told not to do, 
and this literal disobedience must have as literal an 
atonement , and so, however we may revolt from 
the view that we are condemned because of what he 
did, we must accept the beginning to share in the 
ending. 

The spirit of the Bible, however, teaches the Law 
of God as something very different from this ; some- 
thing which meets and satisfies equally the rational 
and the emotional natures, which points out a logical 
process from cause to effect, and shows the outwork- 
ing of the impersonal God to manifestation instead of 
the anger and satisfied desire for vengeance of a 
personal one. 

There is this difference between the teachings of 
ecclesiastical Christianity and those of the Bible : 
the one appeals to and plays upon one side of ouj 



248 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

nature only, leaving the other to get along as best 
it can. The other satisfies both, for it gives both 
that full occupation through which only can come 
satisfaction. Reason alone will never compass and 
comprehend the truth of the Christ ; realization or 
consciousness will. The intuitional nature knows 
and feels ; reason supports this knowing and feeling 
through its own work, for it finds and gives answer to 
every " Why?" ; and it is through this at-one-ment, 
or marriage, this conscious unity of the intuitional 
and the rational natures, that the higher birth 
comes. 

The perception of this spirit of the Bible, as 
underlying its letter, shows us the Adam of the 
second chapter of Genesis as the type of mankind 
in its beginnings; as the product of Man or the Lord 
God after or according to his kind ; and this begin- 
ning must grow or increase to fullness, must ripen 
through development till, reaching its fullness in the 
Jesus, the at-one-ment is thereby made with the true 
man, the Son of God ; and so the fullness of the God- 
head is made visible, for mankind is the medium for 
this visibilit5^ 

The man of the first chapter, tlie image, is the 
direct product of the One Creator and the One 
Creative Power ; the effect of that cause through its 
self-existent power to produce or create. The Adam 
or dust-man of the second chapter is peraon and is 
the product of the reproducing power belonging to 
Man ; and it is the nature and office of this Divine 
Image of God to produce the perfect likeness of his 
kind, or that which accords with what he is, through 



THE ATONEMENT, 249 

and by means of the reproducing power which be- 
longs to him because of what he is ; because of his 
nature ; and this reproducing power is the forming 
power of the Lord God as declared in the second 
chapter of Genesis. 

It produces this likeness by degrees, the first 
degree being the Adam ; and this process must go on 
till, step by step, this complete likeness is forth- 
coming ; or till there is perfect at-one-ment between 
the Son of God and the son of man ; between the 
product of God and the product of Man ; between 
the result of the Creative Power and the result of the 
reproducing or forming power. And the reason why 
this is so is because the One God, the One 1 Am, is 
thereby made manifest, this full manifestation or the 
Christ being the aim and end of Creation which is 
not finished till it is forthcoming; and it cannot 
come forth till the work is done which produces it ; 
till the perfect person through whom the Christ is 
manifested is completed. 

Atonement, or at-one-ment, is a process which finds 
its culmination only with the Jesus as this perfect 
person. It is what is stated by Paul in this second 
chapter of Ephesians. The atonement made for us 
by Jesus is declared in the 14th, 15th and 16th 
verses : " For he is our peace who hath made both 
one and hath broken down the middle wall of parti- 
tion between us; having abolished in his flesh the 
enmity, even the law of commandments contained in 
ordinances ; for to make in himself of twain, one new 
man, so making peace ; and that he might reconcile 



250 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain 
the enmity thereby." 

This middle wall of partition which must be broken 
down is the seeming contradictoriness between the 
offspring of God and the offspring of Man. They 
are not opposed to each other in nature, but are 
similar ; and this seeming contrariness and opposi- 
tion between the spiritual and the personal is the 
"enmity" which must be abolished to make peace 
between them, which can be established only by 
making of these two " one new man," of Jesus 
Christ. 

The abolishing of this " enmity " is the work done 
in the process from Adam to Jesus ; and the Jesus is 
the fruit of this atoning process w^ho as such completes 
the last stage in it ; makes the final at-one-ment " by 
the cross." 

This atonement, or at-one-ment, the latter word 
giving the higher signification, is the place " where 
two ways meet," and which is spoken of in the 
Gospels as the place where the colt "upon which 
never man sat " was tied and which bore Jesus into 
Jerusalem prior to the crucifixion. The two ways, 
the creating way and the forming way, the one from 
God and the other from Man; the two products, the 
one from the Creative Power and the other from the 
reproducing power ; the image of God and the image 
of man meet here and become one ; and through this 
at-one-ment, the one new man who is made the twain 
is the manifestation of God; or the likeness of God, 
and the likeness of man are made one likeness as the 
Christ. 



THE ATONEMENT. 251 

To follow this process from its beginning with Adam 
through the atoning which is done on the way to its 
culmination in Jesus with the final at-one-ment, is to 
see the seeming enmity between the immortal and the 
mortal, between the spiritual and the personal, 
abolished ; for only through its abolishment can one 
new man be made of these two and both be recon- 
ciled to or made in conformity to God by one body. 

This one body in and by which both the immortal 
and the mortal are at one with God, can come only 
by the slaying, the overcoming of the seeming en- 
mity or iinlikeness between them, which is done by 
the overcoming of mortal sense, the natural sense of 
the lesser self-consciousness, which alone sees and 
holds this unlikeness, and atoning for its errors 
through experience. And this is the atoning process 
which accompanies every step of the way from Adam 
to Jesus ; and the final at-one-ment of the Jesus with 
the Christ brings immortality to light because that 
enmity and its sura, mortality, is slain by way of the 
cross ; for through that cross the personal or natural 
body which, with the Jesus, is at its highest point, is 
consumed by the spiritual or Christ body, that only 
being the visible after the resurrection. 

This brief and therefore necessarily only outline 
statement of atonement, as taught by the Bible in- 
stead of by ecclesiasticism, will be found to yield, as 
it is studied from the basis given, far richer and 
fuller, more satisfactory results than the dogma 
which has been taught us in times past. So, we are 
able to see the outworking of impersonal, abstract 
truth to manifestation, instead of the will of a 



252 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

personal God which visits the penalty due to guilt 
upon the innocent. We can see that justice, which 
is always and forever impersonal, and is therefore 
represented as blind because not seeing it as a per- 
son sees, and hence not influenced or actuated by 
feeling, a justice which is entirely lacking in the 
other presentation. 

We see from this basis that every one of us 
must make our own atonement through our own 
recognition of its necessity. Every one of us 
must make of twain, one new man. Seeing our- 
selves as Adam, we see that his mortal sense, the 
natural sense of the natural man, is at enmity with 
the sense which belongs to Man, the image of God 
because of its limitations. It cannot see far enough 
to see the truth of being or 'the abstract reality. It 
can see only the visible to it, which is what we call 
the world ; and this visible is not only the real to it 
because the actual, but the only real as well. This 
sense, therefore,. sees person as man. 

The mistakes of mortal sense, which are the only 
errors, and their consequences, which are the only 
evils, have to be atoned for before the kingdom of 
heaven, or that harmonious consciousness which is 
the inheritance of the son of man or the mortal, can 
be entered into ; and it is entered only by way of 
the cross of self-denial — denying person as man — 
which, at a certain point in this process, is taken up 
and carried to its end. 

The successor of the Adam, Enos, a higher type of 
the natural man reached through development, this 
development coming through both experience and 



THE ATONEMENT. 253 

revelation, atones for the errors of and evils to 
mortal sense so far as his capacity as the higher type 
permits ; and his successor, the Noah, a still higher 
type reached through the continuity of this devel- 
opment and of the means by which it comes, atones 
for the shortcomings of his predecessors. And this 
process of atonement continues to the Jesus through 
the intervening stages typified by Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, each of these atoning also ; while he, as 
the last, atones for all of them or for the sins of the 
world. 

He finishes the work given to the mortal to do, 
which is the working out of its own salvation from 
the errors and evils of mortal sense, which, collect- 
ively, constitute mortality. 

In the Jesus, the highest type-man and person- 
type of mankind as both individual and collective, and 
of a redeemed humanity, all the previous types, or 
those less than he, are at one. He is the second Adam 
through their at-one-ment in him ; but this at-one- 
ment has come only through the casting out of devils 
on the way ; through the casting out of the errors 
and evils which are the legitimate fruit of mortal sense. 

And this casting out is the means by which the 
mortal climbs higher or develops to the ripening 
point; climbs by overcoming them, and overcoming 
them through a higher perception, a sense beyond the 
limitations of mortal sense ; a sense which leads 
to understanding, consequently to realization ; and 
through these to the knowing of all things. 

Seven devils are cast out on the way and one 
atoned for, each devil being the coUectiveness of the 



254 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

errors and evils at each degree of this process or with 
each type-man ; even Jesus, as the seventh, having 
the last to cast out, or the Judas before, by way of 
the cross, he could enter entirely, body and all, into 
that kingdom prepared from before the foundation of 
the world ; or into that heaven which is the expres- 
sion of the One God as the abstract reality before 
this process which leads to consciousness of it, begins. 

Peace, harmony — peaceful, harmonious conscious- 
ness — is found in this process which begins with the 
Adam, only through the casting out of the devils, 
and so making atonement for their previous harbor- 
ing, by constantly making atonement fo?- the sins 
and errors of mortal sense through higher endeavor 
and more earnest following after the invisible reality 
till it becomes the actual to us in place of what is 
now such ; and the final peace which passeth or is 
beyond understanding, only so becomes established. 

This whole process, which is individual to every 
one of us, is the work which makes of twain, one new 
man, through the slaying of the enmity between 
them ; for there is no real enmity between the im- 
mortal and the mortal; between the Son of God and 
the Son of Man, between the spiritual individuality 
and the representative person. Mortal sense holds 
all the enmity or unlikeness in and to itself ; and 
this sense overcome, the enmity is slain or brought 
to an end. So it is the work of atonement which 
brings them together ; and their unity is the new 
man who, as the at-one-ment of the likeness of God 
and the likeness of man, is the Christ who is made 
manifest through the Jesus, the highest type ; for 



THE ATONEMENT. 255 

the work being done which brings forth this product 
there are no more types. The degrees have reached 
unity i the law is fulfilled, and the ascension out of 
sight follows. 

Are we, my friends, now making this true atone- 
ment for the sins of the Adam ? For the shortcom- 
ings and consequent mistakes of mortal sense, the 
natural sense of the natural man ? Are we endeav- 
oring to so break down the middle wall of partition 
between the immortal and the mortal ? To abolish 
in the flesh or body the enmity seemingly between 
them? So only can we bring forth the immortal 
body, the flesh and bones separated from blood which 
belong to the Christ in place of that bleeding body 
which belongs to mortal sense. The immortal and 
mortal must both be reconciled to God by one 
body ; or seen to be in conformity to immortal and 
unchanging truth ; to all that God is, and so brought 
together in one ; and the body of this at-one-ment is 
eternal. 

On the way to it there is warring in our members 
because the enmity between these two must be slam 
or overcome. We are experiencing this warring 
among the members to-day. The good that we 
would, we do not, and the evil we woul(3 not, that 
we do ; and it is because the sense of the spiritual 
man is striving with the sense of the natural man * a 
strife which will be kept up till they are brought 
together in one through the perception, understand- 
ing and realization which is possible for every one 
of us through our connection with the spiritual, 
and which comes to us through the door opened 



256 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

within w-.en we begin to see that the mortal is not 
necessarily at enmity with the immortal ; see that 
the two are in perfect harmony in what they are ; 
that it is only necessary for us to see, understand, 
realize, and know that they are so, to make that final 
at-one-ment of them which brings forth the new man ; 
making it by degrees to fulness ; bringing forth the 
Christ little by little, till we stand revealed in His 
likeness, satisfied. 

Does the shadow of the cross, which covers the 
whole of this way by which the middle wall or par- 
tition between the immortal and the mortal is broken 
down, appal you ? If so, turn not aside, but remem- 
ber that strength to bear that cross up the mount 
is developed through this atoning process, which 
finishes upon it ! That the peace which is oh ! so 
much better than what mortal sense calls happiness, 
is waiting for us there. 

Is it worth striving after ? Is it worth stretching 
forth the hands from which drop the joys of the 
world, the prizes for which mortal sense runs its race, 
because ttie fingers loose their hold through desire 
for that which is so much above and beyond them — 
stretching them forth assift-edly, knowing that they 
shall receive when they bear the marks of the nails 
that have held them outstretched ? 

But they cannot bear these marks when we hold 
in them something dearer than the final at-one-ment 
and that which lies beyond it. 

Let go the delights of mortal sense, and stretch 
them wide that they may receive these marks which 
prove the ransomed Son of Man heir to and partaker 
of that glory which is above and beyond the world. 



THE MAN B OBN BLIND. 257 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 
John ix. 1-7. 

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from 
his birth. 

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this 
man, or his parents, that he was born blind ? 

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; 
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day : 
the night cometh, when no man can work. 

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. 

When he haa thus spoken, he spat upon the ground, and made 
clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with 
the clay. 

And he said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which 
is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way therefore, and 
washed, and came seeing. 

In the many cases of healing recorded in the Gos- 
pels as wrought by Jesus of Nazareth, all of which 
have a significance above their physical aspect, the 
restoring of sight to one born blind seems to have 
special interest for many who study these in the 
light of the new interpretation. 

All of them, while instances of divine or true heal- 
ing of physical ills or imperfections, are also sym- 
bolical illustrations of the like healing which has to 
take place with the inner man before its externaliza- 
tion upon the body is possible. 

17 



258 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

All of them have this inner and outer meaning, 
the esoteric and exoteric significance ; and while the 
consideration which is based upon their physical 
aspect is good as far as it goes, the Kmitations of this 
view will prevent perception of the higher truth 
revealed in them if it is not sought to pass beyond 
this. 

Disease and pain, physical infirmities and defects 
fastened upon one from birth or acquired later 
through the many ways for such, according to our 
mortal sense of things, are so common, so universally 
the experience of all men, that removal of any one of 
these by any other means than the generally recog- 
nized ones, especially if the method followed differs 
so markedly from them as to seemingly amount to 
nothing, produces general astonishment and quick 
inquiry as to how it was done. 

We are so accustomed to think that the orthodox, 
in any direction, is the only reliable, and the het- 
erodox dangerous, that we feel security only when 
standing by the orthodox, forgetting that " the non- 
sense of to-day is the sense of the future " as history 
has ever proven. 

All heterodox methods, then, those not in accord 
with commonly accepted standards, will surely be 
condemned before they are accepted, and will not be 
accepted till evidence is forthcoming which compels 
such acceptance, which will, of necessity, be partial 
before it is complete. 

Many instances of healing in these days have pro- 
duced the astonishment, the incredulity and even the 
condemnation which ever fall to the lot of the hetero- 



THE MAN BOBN BLIND. 259 

dox ; and where there is recognition of the results 
because such is compelled by evidence, acceptance 
stops right there if there is no understanding of the 
law by which they have been forthcoming. 

And all claims in regard to them are denied also, 
while the same benefits for others are likely to be re- 
jected because they cannot be accounted for accord- 
ing to orthodox views. 

But little by little, year by year, is coming more 
and more the perception to mankind that bodily 
conditions are determined by interior or mental condi- 
tions ; and that, this being so, the best way to reach 
them is through the mental directly ; that all other 
methods are simply through the mental indirectly ; 
and as this is seen it will also be seen that that which 
acts upon the physical through the mental must lie 
the other side of it, not this ; that the healing power 
in nature acts from the within out, not from the 
without to the within. 

Considering the case of this man born blind merely 
in its physical aspect, the giving him sight would be 
an impossibility according to what is designated 
natural law, and consequently a miracle to those 
who understand no other law. 

It is because of these impossibilities to our natural 
and educated sense of things that these records of 
healing are considered miracles or as acts taking 
place outside of and contrary to natural law ; and 
because of our blindness to the over-ruling law we — 
some of us — accept them as marks of a special divin- 
ity in and with the one who performed them which 
makes them hopeless of attainment with any one else. 



260 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

" The day of miracles is past," say many, when 
incidents as really miraculous or wonderful are con- 
stantly transpiring all around us, proving that the 
impossible of yesterday is the possible of to-day. 

The healing of all disease and imperfection in 
mankind is the natural result of its development of 
inherent possibilities, of its progression to higher 
planes ; and it is sure to come when the development 
has reached the stage where it is possible, for the 
only truly governing law of the world and all belong- 
ing to it, is spiritual law, and this works ever silently 
but all potently to this consummation. 

Mankind is to be perfected ; is to put on the like- 
ness of God through putting on the likeness of the 
image of God, perfect Man. In its infancy only, its 
early stages, does what is called disease and. evil per- 
tain to it as conditions possible only because of its 
infancy and growth ; its progress away from these 
conditions through overcoming them. 

They mean something and will remain with -man- 
kind till their meaning is found ; for there only is 
the way open to deliverance from them through 
understanding their nature and the nature of the 
mankind that is to be delivered from them. 

The accounts of the so-called miracles in the Gos- 
pels are nothing but true statements of individual 
and collective possibilities for mankind according to 
law, not favor, wlien the eyes are ready to be opened; 
when the true healing power, which is the redeeming 
because regenerative power is approached in the 
upward progress of the human race. 

This very power which heals diseases as made 



TBE MAN BORN BLIND. 261 

manifest through the Jesus of Nazareth, heals or 
removes evils, casts out devils; and the plague 
spots upon the body politic, which the various liberal 
movements of the day are seeking to abolish, will 
disappear when the diseases of mankind disappear, 
and not before. 

The overcoming of one will be the overcoming of 
the other, for they are twin born and the length of 
days of the one is the lengtli of days of the other. 

What do all these efforts which are being made 
under the designations of Nationalism, Socialism, etc., 
mean, if they are not the working forth more and 
more from the invisible to the visible of the true 
nature of God and of Man, so displacing the old 
conceptions of both which have been our heritage 
from our fathers, been the handing down of tradition 
which custom has made law ? 

All these efforts mean far more than their distinct- 
ive appellations reveal to the casual observer ; only 
the true lover and student of his kind will see their 
deeper nature and wider outcome. 

Would these efforts, which to-day are general the 
world over, as our newspapers inform us, seem to 
show that mankind, which is born blind, is at last 
ready to have its eyes opened to its true nature and 
destiny ? 

And that this giving of sight is to come from the 
few who have perceived what the mass has been 
blind to and who are so, the channel through which 
the lacking sight is to come ? 

That only one who sees truly or according to the 
principle of things instead of according to the natural 



262 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

or self-sense of them can help others to the same 
seeing ? 

There seems to be this higher meaning in the 
record of the man born blind ; a meaning above its 
physical aspect as one of the miracles wrought by 
the historical Jesus, and one which we shall do well 
to consider ; for, according to the teachings of the 
Bible, all disease and imperfection in us is the result 
of sin, while in this recorded instance neither this 
man nor his parents had sinned. 

" And as Jesus passed by he saw a man which was 
blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him 
saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, 
that he was born blind ? And Jesus answered. 
Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; but 
that the works of God should be made manifest in 
him." 

O my friends ! Look away from the narrow and 
dogmatic letter of this great truth as it is to-day so 
often stated, to the broad and uplifting meaning 
contained in these few words. 

Let us see that there is a mankind as well as Man, 
and that it has its place in the universal whole as 
much as has the Son of God ; and this m^ankind is 
sinless, is as pure in nature as that one and only 
Man, the image of God, who by means of this man- 
kind is to be made manifest. 

But it is born blind ; as the infant it is naturally 
and inevitably blind to its own nature and possibil- 
ities, a blindness which remains till by reason of 
growth its eyes are opened to see them. 

Mankind as a whole and every individual member 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 263 

of it is born blind to the individual and general 
nature and destiny ; and this through no fault, no sin, 
but strictly in accordance with the nature of God 
and of Man. Because God and Man are what they 
are, mankind is born blind, that the works of God 
may be made manifest. 

If we can accept the fundamental proposition that 
God is the One I Am and Man is its one or whole ex- 
pression as the individual identity which must develop 
and hold its own self-consciousness, we can see that 
there must be a process between this individual 
identity and its perfected self-consciousness through 
which that is gained ; and so we can see a reason and 
a place for mankind or for something which is neither 
one of the two between which is this process, but 
which, in its nature, is like that which it starts from 
and so is the medium through which the works of 
God are made manifest ; the medium through which 
comes the manifestation of Man's nature, of Creation 
and even the nature of God, for the nature of the 
works reveal the nature of the worker; and this 
manifestation, in its fullness, or at the Qudof this pro- 
cess in which and belonging to which is mankind is 
the developed Self of Man, the likeness of God. 

Mankind is the medium through which the Christ 
is brought forth and the Christ is the likeness of God, 
this Self of Man the image of God ; is the divine 
nature of Man, visible, and so God made visible. 

Every individual member of mankind is to bring 
forth this Christ, is to help take the works of God 
manifest ; and every one of us is born to this Avork, 
but born blind ; or seeing it not; and every one of 



264 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

US has to get our eyes open to this necessity and to 
the way to accomplish this work. 

Seeing mankind for what it is ; seeing it as the 
link between the Lord and the Christ or between the 
individual identity which is the overshadowing Most 
High, the Lord of all, and the Self belonging to the 
Lord, we can see that the beginning of mankind or 
its infancy is blind to its manhood or highest point; 
just as an infant born into the world, is blind to what 
lies before it as well as to the world into which it is 
born ; and we can see that this beginning or state 
is sinless and natural, necessary to that which is to 
come. 

It is the primal innocence of Adam and Eve, the 
lamb which must be offered up as a sacrifice to the 
Lord, for this infant blindness must go ; the eyes of 
mankind must be opened that it may see what it is, 
what it means, and what it is for. And the eyes of 
mankind are opened to see truly only when it is of 
age. 

" Is this your son, who ye say was born blind ? How 
then doth he now see ? His parents answered them 
and said. We know that this is our son, and that he 
was born blind ; but by what means he now seeth, 
we know not ; or who hath opened his eyes we know 
not ; he is of age ; ask him : he shall speak for him- 
self." 

How can one see principles till they have developed 
the capacity to see them through growth ? Mankind 
in its infancy is inevitably blind to them and must 
come of age to truly see, or see with understanding 
instead of with sense ; and when this period is reached, 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 265 

when the capacity to see is developed through growth, 
there will be the means which opens the eyes, ready 
at hand. 

Each individual member of mankind as he ap- 
proaches the stage of responsibility, or comes of age, 
so reaches the point where understanding of all things 
begins to be possible ; and he must assist thereto by 
washing away that which he has allowed to keep him 
in blindness ; he must rid himself of his old sense of 
things which is the sense of the blind if he would 
have instead the sense of the one who sees ; he must 
wash away the clay from his eyes, clear away from 
his vision this obstructing materiality. 

If we follow this world process, in which is man- 
kind, from its beginnings with Adam, we shall see 
that what is called the natural sense of the natural 
man is the sense with which we see ourselves and all 
things. But seeing with this sense is the blindness 
natural to mankind's infancy ; and the experience 
which is ours in this blindness brings us at last to 
that point in this universal process which is the com- 
ing of age, or growing to where we are ready to have 
our eyes opened ; ready to exchange our natural or 
Adam-sense of things for the higher sense of them or 
for that one which can see their true nature. 

We are ready to understand instead of believe ; 
ready to judge righteous judgment instead of accord- 
ing to appearances ; ready to receive that higher 
knowledge which is Wisdom in place of the sense 
knowledge ; ready to see no evil through knowing 
that all is good because of principles discerned, in- 
stead of believing that evil is an entity and a power 



266 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

in itself ; ready to see the world as but a working 
model, a unity of passive forms acted upon, good in 
themselves, not evil, and so seeing all things anew ; 
ready to experience the flood of Genesis, and its 
counterpart in this chapter of John ; ready to have 
our old sense oi things washed away ; ready to, our- 
selves, wash the clay from our eyes that we may see. 

This clay or ground, what we call matter or the ma- 
terial and which hides from us spiritual verities when 
we see it with that natural sense which is blindness 
to its true nature, becomes a help instead of a hin- 
drance in the hands of understanding as represented 
by Jesus' use of it ; for when its true nature is so 
seen it is washed away from before our eyes through 
the removing of our old sense and the seeing it and 
all pertaining to it through the understanding that 
All is Mind, and there is nothing, not even what we 
call matter, that is separate from it. 

" He went his way therefore, and washed, and came 
seeing." As individual members of mankind we 
must all have the experience here recorded: and 
through this individual experience mankind will 
slowly but surely wake up from its natural blindness 
to see its own God-likeness and bring it forth ; see 
that that Will of God which is the eternal and immu- 
table law of Cause and Effect is steadily working to this 
production ; see that the turning point in the progress 
of the race is this change from natural blindness to 
as natural because divine, seeing ; is the work which 
is inevitably done in the Lord's day ; that seventh 
day of Creation in which the Christ is brought forth ; 
see that this change is preparing the way for the 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 267 

Christ who is born to us through understanding of 
principles, not through beliefs in traditions. 

" And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made 
the clay, and opened his eyes. Then again the Phar- 
isees asked him how he had received his sight. He 
said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I 
washed, and do see. Therefore said some of the Phar- 
isees, This man is not of God because he keepeth 
not the sabbath day. Others said. How can a man 
that is a sinner do such miracles ? And there was a 
division among them." 

The holiness of the Sabbath or seventh day which 
must be kept is not seen when the view held of that 
day is a part of the blindness which must be removed. 
The followers of the letter of the law as represented by 
the Pharisees, ignorantly put their own traditions in 
place of the truth, making it of none effect for them. 

They do not see that this seventh day is whole and 
that every part of it must be kept ; see that it is that 
day between the Lord and the Christ, between the 
individual identity which is Lord over all and the Self 
belonging to it which Creation is to bring forth; and 
that so it is the Lord's day, every stage in which 
must be met and passed through in successive order, 
keeping it whole through missing none of them ; 
and through so keeping this day wholly, doing the 
Lord's work on that day ; for as this work is the pro- 
duction of the true Self which belongs to Man and 
which is the end and aim of Creation, the opening the 
eyes of those born blind to that Self and to the work, 
which brings it forth is that legitimate work ; for it 
is the necessary beginning to the conscious bringing 



268 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

forth of the Christ, working to that end in the liglit 
instead of in darkness. 

But those who have had the clay placed upon their 
eyes by the Jesus that they might see its true nature 
and have done their own work as well, have gone as 
they were sent to wash it away ; who testify to this 
opening of their vision on the Sabbath day so that 
they see its true holiness and its outcome as that 
day in and through whose works God is made mani- 
fest because Man is made manifest, will be cast out 
by those who are disciples of Moses, by those who 
cherish wliat has been handed down from generation 
to generation as truth, and which is truth to them 
because it has been so handed down. 

These will deny the possibility of individual under- 
standing as coming into the world in accordance 
with that eternal law which overrules human law ; 
and so it will be cast out from their midst till for 
them also comes, at last, through further experience, 
that which sends them also to the same pool where 
they too wash and are made able to see. 

The day of judgment is in the world and sooner or 
later every one of us must meet it. None of us are 
done with the world till we have judged of it right- 
eously or truthfully and worked out our salvation 
from our former sense of it ; till we have judged our- 
selves righteously or truthfully and worked out our 
salvation from our former sense of ourselves ; and 
to this end does the Jesus come into the world or 
into our consciousness as the type of the true man 
to which we must conform. 

" And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 2G9 

this world, that they which see not might see ; and 
that they which see might be made blind." 

Man, according to the natural sense or our Adam- 
sense of ourselves, is a poor substitute for what he 
truly is as seen through understanding ; and as what 
he truly is, is to be made manifest, this day of judg- 
ment or stage of understanding is that period where 
the sheep are separated from the goats ; where those 
who understand are separated from those who only 
believe ; where those who have seen not, see, and 
those who see are made blind ; where the former en- 
ter into the joy of their Lord and the latter depart 
into that further experience which shall at last show 
them that their boasted seeing has been but blindness ; 
for Man as he is ever was, and ever will be, cannot be 
made manifest through a misconception of him. 

There must be a conception which is a likeness of 
him, or like unto instead of contrary to him, before he 
can be made manifest as the Christ. And for this 
judgment does the Jesus come into the world, does 
this immaculate or pure and true conception of Man 
come to us to be compared with the old sense concep- 
tion of him ; and we are to judge between the two ; 
the one is for life eternal ; the other is for destruc- 
tion. 

The one is Man as he appears to one born blind, 
as he seems in the darkness of mortal sense ; the 
other is Man as he is in the light of understanding. 
And this pure and true son of man, this pure and 
true conception of man born in us must finally be 
born from us. We must bring him forth in the 



270 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

world where he proves his nature, or the truth, to 
those who can see. 

We must become what we conceive Man to be 
through understanding what he must be as the Son 
of God ; as that divine being who is eternal. 

We must become the Jesus io fully bring forth the 
Christ ; we must grow after and according to this 
true conception of Man instead of continuing to be 
like the old mortal or misconception of him ; we must 
continually put that off to put the other on ; and it 
is through this constant putting off and putting on 
that the Jesus stands at last in the world, Master 
of it and of all belonging to it, demonstrating the divin- 
ity of Man by putting all things under his feet. 

O my friends I Let us cease to look after a dead 
and gone Jesus ! Let us rather look forward to that 
living Jesus which every one of us must and will con- 
ceive and bring to birth through our purity, through 
our ridding ourselves of that old conception " born 
in sin and conceived in iniquity " as it has been 
termed, but which is only the sense or conception 
natural to one born blind — born not seeing the truth 
which so has to come to him — and sure to disappear 
as the darkness of blindness or ignorance is ex- 
changed for understanding. 

So purifying ourselves through purifying our sense 
and our consciousness, we are capable of immaculate 
conception or of conceiving truly the nature of man ; 
and that which is conceived in purity is brought forth 
by that virgin to the world, to be rejected of it, per- 
haps ? Yes ; to be crucified even because they which 
say they see, are really blind ; so their sin remain eth. 



THE MAN BORN BLIND, 271 

But, for ourselves, this pure son of man, which, 
because of what he is lifts all mankind up to himself, 
is the highest type of the Son of God, and so is truly 
for us the way of salvation ; the way to the Father ; 
the way by which we find and know Him ; the way 
by which we finally dwell with Him ; the way of at- 
one-ment so made for us and which, if we accept 
and follow, brings us to the end of the world, the end 
of the limitations which are the world and opens for 
us the door of the limitness through which we see 
that infinite beyond which is oneness with Infinity 
Itself. 

So we approach this door ; so we pass through it ; 
so is this world at an end for us and we know only 
eternity. So has the Lion of strength and courage 
lain down with the Lamb of primal innocence, and 
both have been led by this little child, born within 
us, to that Infinite Source of all things from which 
all comes and to which all goes. 



272 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 



THE LAME MAN AT THE GATE OF THE 
TEMPLE. 

Acts ni. 1-8. 

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the 
hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. 

And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, 
whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called 
Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple ; 

Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked 
an alms. 

And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said. Look 
on us. 

And he gave heed imto them, expecting to receive something of 
them. 

Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none ; but such as I have 
give I thee : In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and 
walk. 

And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and im- 
mediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. 

And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them 
into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. 

The instances of healing recorded of Jesus in the 
Gospels and termed " miracles," if considered possible 
to him only, afforded no explanation of like healing 
by the apostles. If Jesas alone had power to heal 
because of his divine nature, the question arises how 
did the apostles, who were unlearned and ignorant 
men, heal the man lame from his birth ? 



TUB LAME MAN A T THE TEMPLE GA TE. 273 

How did Peter heal him bedridden of the palsy for 
eight years and raise Tabitha from the dead ? And 
how did Paul, who was not one of Jesus' disciples, 
becoming with them an apostle, but was from the first 
an apostle, called of God so to be through His own 
individual revelation, heal the man a cripple from 
his birth, who had never walked, and restore to life 
the young man who fell from the window and was 
picked up dead ? 

These records of the New Testament show con- 
clusively that healing of disease and raising of the 
dead were not confined to Jesus alone ; neither that 
it was possible to others only when under the con- 
stant teaching of the visible Jesus, for these instances 
recorded of Peter and Paul were occurrences after 
the ascension of Jesus. 

And Paul had never seen or been with him ; had 
never been taught the mysteries of the kingdom of 
God by him as had the disciples. How then did he 
heal, performing works not only identical with those 
of Peter, but with those of Jesus also ? 

For those who hold to a special divinity on the 
part of Jesus impossible to others of mankind, there 
would seem to be no explanation possible except it be 
the assumption that a special power to heal was 
imparted to the apostles and Paul by Jesus ; but this 
would be contrary to his own statements, for he at 
all times declared that he had no power of his own 
and did nothing of himself. 

If he possessed no power to heal he could impart 

none ; he could not give his disciples or others what 

he had not to give ; therefore these instances of heal- 

18 



274 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

ing by Peter and Paul could not be the result of any 
power given them by JesuSc 

The fact that works identical with those recorded 
of Jesus were performed by others, should show us 
that they are possible to mankind ; that Jesus was 
not the only worker of miracles, as these were called, 
and hence that they were not the result of what he 
was to the exclusion of a like nature for others ; that 
all that he was, others may be, and may demonstrate 
that they are so like by like deeds. 

If Jesus is the example for mankind, " the first- 
born among many brethren," all mankind, and so 
every individual member of it, is to conform to him, 
or become like him, and this not by favor, but by law. 
If Jesus is our elder brother, we as his brothers 
have liis nature as our own, for we are sprung from 
the same source, have common parenthood. 

The brothers of one family are entitled alike to 
that which is the father's and mother's ; have equal 
inheritance as brothers ; but the elder brother will 
the soonest attain his majority and enter into 
possession of his inheritance, showing that he has 
it by using it. 

If we can take this of the Jesus, see that he is the 
type of mankind's highest possibilities, the first-born 
into that knowledge which constitutes Divine Wis- 
dom, and so is the self-knowledge which brings out 
these possibilities ; so the example for us which, if 
followed, causes us to grow according to what he is 
till we become what he was, is, and ever will be, be- 
cause we have the capacity for this growth as broth- 
ers in one family, we shall be able to see that all 



THE LAME MAN AT THE TEMPLE GA TE. 21 iy 

recorded of him is potentially possible with us ; a 
possibility brought to the actual fact in the propor- 
tion of our growth. 

If we can see that this one family, mankind, as 
that familj^ of which we individually are members, 
therefore brothers, is the medium through which the 
works of God are to be made manifest, we shall see 
that the logical sequence makes every one of us a 
medium for such manifestation ; and that if this 
manifestation is the consequence of the nature of 
God, therefore sure and certain as the inevitable re- 
lation of Cause and Effect, it will come through every 
one of us as we are open to and for it : as the way 
is prepared through our removal of impediments. 

This view will enable us to see that the works of 
the apostles were not more wonderful than natural ; 
natural as the result of this growth in likeness to the 
Jesus, wonderful only to those having no perception 
of their meaning through having no understanding 
of the change in those through whom they came ; a 
change which is only the removal of that which has 
hitherto prevented such demonstrations. 

The key to the understanding of these so-called 
miracles is the understanding of the nature of the 
Jesus. So long as he is believed to be other than he 
is, so long will these be believed impossible in any 
other day or time ; and so the declaration " Whatso- 
ever ye shall ask in my name ye shall receive " will 
remain of none effect, for there is great difference 
between asking Jesus and asking " in his name " for 
what we desire or need. 

When we ask him, the way for manifestation of 



276 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

the works of God is blocked. If he could do nothing 
of himself how can he do for us ? When we ask in 
his name, this way is open, for in the first instance 
we look to Jesus and unavailingly ; in the other we 
look through him and with sure returns ; for all that 
he is, or was, is of the Father and comes from thence 
to us. 

This is the position of the apostle and why he heals, 
for the works of God can be made manifest through 
him because of his looking through the Jesus to the 
one Source whence cometh all that transforms man- 
kind ; for the apostle of Cbiist is beyond the disciple 
of Jesus. Apostleship is the growth from the former 
position ; is the seeing and laying hold of the invis- 
ible, so bringing it forth to manifestation, instead of 
holding to the visible only, which is for time and 
comes to an end with it. 

The works of Peter as recorded in the Acts of the 
Apostles, are counterparts of the works of Jesus; 
and such is the case with Paul also , while a curious 
fact, which must surely have a meaning, is that the 
first healing recorded of both of them is that of a 
man born lame ; and one of the most extensively 
dwelt upon cases recorded of Jesus is that of a man 
born blind. 

That which is done with all of these, is the removal 
of something natural to the one healed ; something 
not acquired in childhood or manhood or at any 
time, in any way after birth, but belonging to that 
one at birth; and here these cases of healing differ 
from the others recorded, for those were from ac- 
quired disease. The significance wliich all the heal- 



J THE LAME MAN A T THE TEMPLE GA TE. 277 

ings have above their mere physical aspect, is more 
clearly shown in these where the defect or lack is 
the accompaniment of birth than in those where 
something acquired is removed, because what one 
has brought upon himself through sin or error is 
shown in the last, while a need for help, which is 
not so brought about, is shown by the others. 

The man born blind and restored to sight by 
Jesus ; the man born lame and made to walk by 
Peter and John ; the man " impotent in his feet, a 
cripple from his mother's womb," and made to stand 
and walk by Paul, are all illustrations of the nature 
of mankind individually and collectively and of the 
work needed to be done for it by those capable of 
the doing, through which the works of God and the 
nature of man are made manifest. 

Mankind is the link between that unity, God and 
Man, and the manifestation or visibility of both, 
which is equally a unity. In proportion as the nature 
of man, in its range from lowest to highest possi- 
bilities, is revealed, in like proportion is God from the 
lowest to highest aspect revealed ; for Man being God- 
like in nature, being in what he is, the image of God, 
the manifestation of man is equally the manifestation 
of God ; the revelation of the nature of Man is also 
the revelation of the nature of God. 

All manifestation is through something, and that 
something will be the necessary link between what 
is to be manifest and that result. And here is where 
mankind belongs in the great whole or in that unit, 
the universe. 

The nature of man forms mankind; the repro- 



278 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

ducing power belonging to Man as the image of 
the Creator produces the manifold forms or shapes 
which together constitute the passive world. The 
continued action of this power and that One Mind 
which is God and which works in it produces the 
molding, the changing which is the active world. 

The thinking power is this reproducing power be- 
longing to Man ; his ideas are the shapes formed by 
it and are passive in themselves having no life in 
them ; but tlie continued action of this thinking power 
is the activity seen in and with these shapes and 
causes what we call change in the world, which 
change is only the visible action of the invisible power, 
and through this change, which is but registration of 
development with the possessor of the power, his full 
nature becomes fully manifested, and so the nature 
of his cause or God is manifested as well ; for the 
Author or Cause of Man working in and through him, 
in and through his power — ^for the thinking power 
is sustained by the One Mind — produces the manifes- 
tation which comes through what Man does; and 
what Man does is seen in the ever changing aspect of 
mankind, a change which is in ascension from lowest • 
to highest stages, from the least to the greatest type. 

Mankind is the temple of the Lord which is so 
built from its foundation stone to its pinnacle ; and 
the way into it is through the gate of self-knowledge 
which is the gate Beautiful. In our self-ignorance 
we lie at this gate as beggars, asking alms of those 
who come that way, and who bestow upon us accord- 
ing to what they have. 

The natural ignorance of mankind at its beginning, 



THE LAME MAN A T THE TEMPLE GA TE. 279 

the blindness to its nature, meaning and destiny, 
causes the lameness at birth ; the inability to walk 
knowingly ; and because of this we lie at this gate 
looking upon those who can pass through it and ask- 
ing of them the help we need. 

The help given is good as far as it goes, but it does 
not remove our impotency and enable us to walk 
through the gate also till the Peter and the John 
come to us while lying there ; till the perception and 
understanding which are together and which are ac- 
companied by that love which is not for self, but self- 
less or impersonal, come to us and we look upon them 
in answer to their call. Then we are raised to our feet ; 
and through this raising up we receive the strength we 
were formerly unconscious of; and we walk, and leap, 
and praise God, for we so perceive that unfailing 
Soui-ce from whence we have all we need. 

Oh ! this gate Beautiful. This way into the temple 
where is the holy of holies ! How many lame ones 
are carried to it by their experience unconsciously 
and are lying at its threshold, not knowing that their 
own feet must carry them tlirough it ! 

That gate of Self-knowledge which opens to the 
dwelling-place of Wisdom and makes him who passes 
through it, seeing as he goes, its possessor, is indeed 
Beautiful ; but this is not its aspect to the one who 
lies without, feeling and knowing only his own limita- 
tions. 

Not till, in the lameness of this sense-consciousness, 
we are looked upon by the Peter and the John ; not 
till we in turn look upon them in answer to their call, 
is our lameness removed, and we find and use the feet 



280 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

we have all aloug possessed, yet were as if we had 
none. 

If we trace the process of Creation and the Law 
governing it as they are stated in the book of Genesis, 
we find that development of the nature of Man is 
made visible by, because represented in, what we call 
the world and its inhabitants or mankind. When 
we see the necessity of Self-consciousness as existing 
with that being having the capacity for it, we shall 
see the equal necejsity that this Self-consciousness 
must be like in nature to the nature of the being pos- 
sessing this capacity. 

If man be infinite in nature because the expression 
of Infinity, his Self-consciousness must be infinite or 
unlimited, as must also be the capacity for it, belong- 
ing to what he is and through wliich he gains it. 

Man then, a being of infinite possibilities because 
of his nature, must have for his completeness that 
infinite Self-consciousness which alone accords with 
his nature ; or that Self-knowledge which is Divine 
Wisdom, and which binds Man in eternal conscious 
oneness with God, the All-knowing Mind, as he is 
already in unity with his Cause by his nature. 

In what Man is, he is at one with or in unity with 
God, passively. When he knows what he is, he is 
consciously one with God or in unity with all that 
God is actively ; and the active is the sequence of the 
passive. Creation as a whole containing both ; for the 
passive is manifested through the active ; the abstract 
fact is made visible through the action which brings 
it forth. 

The gaining of the Self-consciousness which be* 



THE LA ME MAN A T THE TEMPLE GA TE. 281 

longs to Man because of his nature, being the orderly 
sequence from what he is, or the latter half of Crea- 
tion, it is by degrees to fullness ; from the least to 
the all ; and what we see as the world and mankind, 
together with all that goes on in the one and with 
the other, represents this process and progress from 
no Self-consciousness to the all of it. 

There will necessarily be a self-consciousness which 
is limited, another less limited and still another 
including more than these ; for the full Self-con- 
sciousness belonging to the nature of Man ; that which 
fills his capacity, is reached according to the underly- 
ing law of Creation which is by degrees or days to 
completeness. Every degree of Self-consciousness 
then, has its place in the whole, yet is not that which 
is the measure of Man; for that is the fullness or 
entity of all degrees. 

Every stage in this process or every degree of self- 
consciousness, has its type in the world ranging from 
least to greatest, according to progress. The type 
belongs to the world ; that which is made manifest 
through the type belongs to the nature of Man. 
The type is p issive ; it is acted upon and through 
this action the manifestation of that which is back 
of it comes. 

These main types or personalities are given in 
Genesis with the exception of the last and highest 
which is the Jesus of the New Testament ; but all 
the various ramifications of this process which com- 
pletes Creation, together with the multiplicity and 
variety in the nature of Man, have their types as 
well; and the inter-relations of all these must be 



282 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

seen to find and follow the higher significance of 
the Bible ; to grasp and hold that meaning which 
makes it the book of books for all Christendom. 

Mankind is a whole which begins with the nature 
of Man and ends with its manifestation ; begins with 
the need for Self-consciousness and ends with its 
fullness or completeness. It is the temple of the 
Lord whose foundation stone is Adam and whose 
pinnacle is Jesus. " The Lord is in his holy temple ; 
let all the earth keep silence before him." 

Worshippers in this temple seek after the Lord ; 
the truth of being or the true being which is one 
with God ; they do not worship the temple, do not 
deify its pinnacle but use it to its own end. As such 
worshippers they enter it at the hour of prayer or 
when seeking truth for its own sake, they so truly 
worship ; and through the Gate Beautiful, the Gate 
of Self-knowledge so finding what it holds for them. 

For every one of us who desire to truly worship 
in this temple, will come, at this hour, the Peter and 
the John who enable us, lame from birth, to enter it 
for that purpose ; for they are the spiritual perception 
and understanding together with love for truth for 
its own sake that are always ready for us when we 
are ready for them ; but we must give heed to them, 
expecting to receive something from them, if we 
would walk through instead of lie helplessly by it. 

"And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with 
John, said. Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, 
expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter 
said, Silver and gold have I none ; but such as I hare 



THE LAME MAN AT THE TEMPLE GATE. 283 

give I thee : In the name of Jesus Christ of Naza- 
reth, rise up and walk." 

We are all, as members of mankind, lying at the 
gate of Self-knowledge, prevented from worshipping 
in the temple to which it opens, because we do not 
enter in through it. Everyone of us is carried to its 
threshold by our experiences and there we will remain 
till perception and understanding come to us, as they 
surely will some time or other if we have desire for 
them. 

These alone, can give us what we most need ; and 
that is not what ministers to our natural sense, not 
the silver and gold of the world, for these but encourage 
us to continue lying at the gate. We need to know 
that our feet, helpless in themselves, can be so acted 
upon through perception of the principle of our nature 
and being which gives us the understanding that 
the Omnipotent strength is ours to draw upon as we 
need, ours to carry us through that gate and into the 
temple where we praise God in declaring what that 
perception and understanding have done for us, and 
proving our words by what we show forth to others 
in the change made in us. 

But we must look to these for our help if we would 
receive that which is above all heretofore given us ; 
must depend on these alone for the time being, in 
order to have that proof of the nature of the help so 
received which renews us ; which enables us to 
achieve that hitherto impossible for us ; not because 
we had no feet, but because we did not know how to 
use them. Every one of us has feet or the capacity 
to understand our own being; but of what avail is it 



284 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

SO long as it is not used ? What mankind most 
needs to-day and in all days, is more knowledge : not 
more of the kind it already has ; not more sense- 
knowledge whicli is the substance of tradition and 
dogma, but of that higher kind which is wisdom ; 
knowledge of the inyisible truth, that bread of life 
which Cometh down from heaven into our conscious- 
ness, and which is so our saviour from the limitations 
of that sense-knowledge which keeps us passive when 
our own conscious activity is all essential to prog- 
ress. 

Throughout the New Testament this necessity is 
declared, and a meaning of all the miracles recorded of 
Jesus, as well as of Peter and John, and later, Paul, 
is the wonderful result of helping mankind to help 
itself; of helping its members to help themselves 
through showing them the way ; showing them how 
to stand upon their own feet. 

Jesus truly came to save them that are lost ; or all 
who do not yet know this way how to save them- 
selves ; for it is one way only — the Father's ; that in 
accord with the natures of God and of Man ; and 
tliere is no other way under heaven by which we can 
be saved from the consequences of ignorance ; no 
other way by which we, having been born blind, can 
see ; no other way by which we, having been born 
lame, can walk ; no other way by which we, being at 
first beggars for truth, for true knowledge of our- 
selves can enter the Gate Beautiful and prove that 
we have received it. 

According to principle, not sense, must we walk ; 
and when we are ready to walk in this wise we find 



THE LAME MAN AT THE TEMPLE GATE. 285 

our feet; have that which was hitherto impotent, 
filled with strength ; have the capacity to achieve 
that Self-consciousness which must be won, filled 
with the strength needed for that work. 

Regeneration is a necessity for mankind ; and all 
those instances of healing are, in their higher aspects, 
illustrations of it. Before any one member of man- 
kind can be lifted up to equality with Man he must 
be regenerated. Before mankind as a whole can be 
lifted up to the same level, it must be regenerated ; 
and this wholeness of regeneration comes only through 
the individual as the first; and regeneration for any 
individual is the type and promise of the universal. 

Jesus is the type of the fruit of individual regen- 
eration first, and of universal last ; as that type he 
shall fill the face of the whole world with fruit ; or 
what the Jesus is, every member of mankind, and so 
mankind as a whole, shall become. 

This regeneration means the change from sense- 
consciousness to Soul-consciousness and the proof of 
it; the change within us from our Adam state or 
natural state of innocent ignorance to the knowing of 
what we are, and which is bodied forth in place of 
the Adam personality. 

What we see and call the person, has to be regen- 
erated, but it must be from the within ; for all regen- 
eration is subjective, and the change in the without 
of the person is nothing but the visibility of the 
change in the consciousness. 

As that is regenerated, our bodies are regenerated 
and no faster. Every degree of regeneration in con- 
sciousness will show forth in a renewed body ; and 



286 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

not till it is complete will the personality be the per- 
fected one, perfected through regeneration. 

When the Peter and the John come to us and we 
look on them expecting to receive, we have that result 
which enables us to show forth that hitherto impos- 
sible, because it takes the Peter and the John to rouse 
and bring out the dormant possibility. It is by their 
help that we are so regenerated ; yet it is not they 
who regenerate. 

"Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why 
look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power 
or holiness we had made this man to walk ? " It is the 
hitherto undiscerned truth of our being which through 
what the Peter and the John are, regenerates us ; for 
so it comes into and works in our consciousness, 
changing and renewing till the old is entirely put off 
and the newly discerned is entirely put on ; and we 
so stand forth in the likeness of Man through con- 
scious unity with Man, making God manifest through 
that likeness. 

The power and holiness does not belong to the per- 
sonality through which it is made manifest, but to that 
truth working in and through the personality to its 
own manifestation. It regenerates when we open the 
way for regeneration through our willingness to re- 
ceive from the Peter and John; and in its own 
time it stands forth embodied in the world through 
this regeneration so made possible. 

Tlie completion of Creation — the making after the 
creating, is surely necessary to Avholeness, and the 
whole is Man. Man is the sum or entity of Creation, 
and Creation includes the Lord, the Jesus and the 



THE LAME MAN AT THE TEMPLE GATE. 287 

Christ. These three are a trinity in unity and that 
unity is Man. 

The Christ is the personality of God, generated 
through the Lord. The Jesus is the personality of 
Man, generated from the Lord ; and these two per- 
sonalities are in unity as the subjective and objective ; 
or, with the visible first and invisible last, as Jesus 
Christ. 

This objective personality, or the Jesus, is the vis- 
ible to sense-consciousness ; to mortal sense ; but its 
nature, its subjective, or the Christ, is invisible to that 
sense ; consequently their unity is invisible as well. 

This objective personality, or the Jesus, is what is 
generated from the Lord la^, not first ; is the regen- 
eration after Adam ; is the fruit of tliat process of 
continued generation from the Lord which makes it, 
as that fruit, the regenerated one which alone can be 
the pure or immaculate personality which is the figure 
of the Christ; of the personality of God. 

So the Lord, which is the individaal " I " that 
images or expresses God ; the Christ which is the 
Self of that I and the Likeness or personality of God; 
the Jesus which is the likeness or personality of Man 
who is the unity of the Lord and the Christ, are the 
trinity in that Unity which is the All ; the Universe 
which is a unit while God is its Soul. 

And through regeneration in consciousness is the 
All finally made manifest. How do we find Christ? 
Through finding ourselves. How is Christ in the 
world? Through us in the proportion that we find 
and manifest him. How is God manifest in the flesh ? 
By our regenerated flesh ; or by that bod)^ which is 



288 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

generated according to the truth of being — according 
to that principle which is God, instead of according 
to sense. God is in the world through that person- 
ality which is " the Word made flesh," and which is 
in unity with the Christ ; therefore is the medium 
for the manifestation of the Christ and so of God. 
Jesus speaks of " Ye that have followed me in the 
regeneration." Let us ask ourselves, Are we so 
following ? 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 289 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 
Romans vni. 5 — 14. 

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; 
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 

For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded 
is life and peace. 

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not 
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 

So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the 
Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of his. 

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin ; but 
the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell 
in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken 
your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. 

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live 
after the flesh. 

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the 
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons 
of God. 

Shall we not do well to ask ourselves, " How am I 
living ? What is the guiding, the impelling motive 
of my life?" 

The self-examination necessary to answer this 



290 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

question will profit us all alike, whatever our con- 
victions as to what constitutes living, whatever our 
view of what constitutes religion. 

This present state of consciousness which is com- 
monly termed " life in this world," is what we at 
present know and, in the opinion of many, is all that 
we are sure of. What it is ; what it means ; has any- 
thing preceded it for us, and will anything succeed 
it, are questions with which many are yet unsatisfac- 
torily wrestling. 

For others they are answered ; but for all alike, 
whether a hereafter is recognized or not, the use we 
are making of the present, its meaning to us, is a 
subject demanding careful attention. 

As we look about us, " Let us eat, drink and be 
merry, for to-morrow we die ! " would seem to be 
the guiding motive of many, and the consequence 
of believing that this life, as it is called, is all there is. 

" I am living to-day," these say, " have the capa- 
city for enjoyment, but do not know how soon I may 
lose it through loss of health or the ability to satisfy 
it through loss of means. Why should I not take all 
I can get or whatever I enjoy as I go along ? 
Whether there is anything after this life is more 
than I know, or more than any one can prove to me, 
and if one does not take care of himself in this world 
no one is going to do it for him." 

To look out for number one, get and enjoy all you 
can, regardless of whether others enjoy or suffer and 
whether it is in your power to help them to the one 
and out of the other, is a course of conduct consistent 
with this view of things, rational to those who hold 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 291 

it, unworthy to those who have higher views and the 
convictions which are their consequence. 

Then there is another class which believes that 
there is a hereafter, that this life is temporary and 
that is everlasting. That from living in this world, 
as a place or locality, they go to another world which is 
also a place or locality, and their happiness there is 
ensured only by what they believe here and the way 
of living which their beliefs entail upon them. 

These naturally try to shape and mold all they 
do with reference to the happiness which they hope 
to receive in the hereafter, and are often inclined to 
think that the more miserable they are here the 
greater chance they have then. 

Whatever misfortune seems to come to them they 
bear it with resignation as a duty, considering the 
ills they experience as sent upon them by their 
heavenly Father for their good, the period for which 
these shall endure being confined to this life only, 
and death the open door to that heavenly abode 
where they cannot enter and where shall be enjoyed 
the reward of the good deeds done in the body. 

This position is the working for a reward possible 
in the future world, impossible in the present one, and 
seems, to some, to have as a motive the doing right 
for what one will get for it sometime, and by no 
means the doing right for right's sake whatever 
comes from it. 

While these two positions quoted seem perhaps 
widely apart, there is a similarity between the mo- 
tives of which they are the product, that show them 
near of kin. In the first, all one can enjoy in the 



292 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

present is aimed for ; in the second, all one can en- 
joy in the future at the expense of foregoing it in the 
present. 

The underlying desire is the same ; the difference 
is in the time and place of gratification and in the 
things which afford it. 

What is ordinarily called " living for the other 
world," and which is impressed upon us as a necessity 
by the common religious teachings, when brought 
down to its impelling motive, is seen to be more or 
less selfish, startling as that conclusion may seem to 
be to many who imagine themselves to be living lives 
of the greatest self-denial. 

There is a higher position than either of these, 
consequent upon a higher view both of the here and 
the possible hereafter ; one for which efforts in so 
many directions are being made under different 
names. 

All endeavors to gain a higher perception of our- 
selves and of the world than is afforded us by either 
science or religion, when these are considered as op- 
posites and contradictory, will bear fruit sooner or 
later in views which show a reconciliation of these 
two in their higher aspects ; and that body of people 
who are to-day gaining these views and the ability, 
for themselves, of sifting the conclusions on either 
side and arriving at the wheat in each, are also be- 
ginning to regulate daily living according to a higher 
ideal than those we have considered. 

A great revolution in thought takes place with 
these, a revolution which transfers the possibilities of 
the reliofionist's hereafter to the here, and effaces 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 293 

both the motive and the desire of the sensualist, who 
lives for the moment only. 

Such ones see that living is continuous, is an un- 
broken sequence from self-existent cause, see that 
that which uses the body as a means of expression is 
not dependent upon it for its own existence or being ; 
and hence that the death of the body, as it is called, 
puts an end only to the expression, not to that which 
has used it for that purpose. 

When it is clearly seen that the invisible some- 
thing which has been called the soul, is what is con- 
nected with what we call the body, only as the user 
of that, and that the body is only the means by which 
what it thinks and desires is made visible ; and that 
the ceasing to use it is no proof that the user is not 
in itself just what it has been all the while, it is also 
clearly seen that consciousness, sensibility, belongs 
to the soul and not to the body ; belongs to the user 
and not to the thing used ; and that, this being so, 
the death of the body cannot affect the conscious- 
ness, the sensibility, or cause it to cease. 

An immense advantage is gained, which is of prac- 
tical use in all the circumstances of daily life, when 
we can see that the plane of the body, that plane on 
which are all the correspondences of the body, is not 
the plane on which we exist or are now, but only the 
one on which we, as souls, look out. 

Using the term " soul " as the individuality of a 
state of consciousness, not as the individual identity 
which directly expresses the Infinite I Am, or That I 
Am, we see that the expression " we are souls " con- 
veys a clearer and truer meaning than the one " we 



294 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

have souls " ; and if the soul only uses and operates 
through the body, the power of action and the action 
being with it and not with the body, the only differ- 
ence with the soul which loss of body can make is 
loss of means and opportunity for making its desires 
and acts visible to the sense which can see only the 
body and its comrades, only the visible objects which 
make up the objective world, and of which the body 
is one. 

If this soul is the possessor of all that goes to make 
it up ; if to it belong the powers which we attribute 
to ourselves, the power to think, to will, to feel, to 
do ; the power of reason, judgment, memory, etc., 
these remain the same, as their possessor remains the 
same, when the body, which is only the means by 
' which they are shown to exist through their opera- 
tion upon and manifestation by means of it, is gone 
from sight. 

And therefore now, while the body is visible and 
seemingly the all because the only object, the plane 
of the soul is the plane of the living, or we are living 
now as souls and not as bodies ; hence the three- 
score years and ten which constitute the term of 
bodily existence is not and can by no means be the 
limitation of the soul's existence. 

It is only the time for the expression of the soul 
on this objective plane; it is the limitation of the 
expression, not of the soul which has so acted for 
that period of time. 

The mistake, natural in the infancy of mankind, 
of considering the seventy years of expression on 
the objective plane, the limit of living, of our life 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 295 

before death claims us, has borne, as one of its liar- 
vest of consequences, the belief that we cease to live, 
and begin over again in another place, and so incited 
us to prepare as favorable conditions for ourselves 
when we get there to live, as we can. 

But when we see that the plane on which we are 
livinsf now is the one we continue on then till we 
outgrow it ; see that what we look out upon from 
where we live or are is what we call this world and 
this life, we shall see that our hereafter is but the 
continuity of our here, our future but the continuance 
of our pi-esent, with the single exception that this 
objective which we now look out upon by means of 
that body which belongs to it, is no longer the world, 
to us. 

And those whom we leave behind, as it is phrased, 
seeing no longer the expression on and through the 
body, say we have gone to the next world, to the 
future life, when we are where we have been all the 
while. 

That soul which speaks for and declares itself 
when it says " I " ; which declares itself or speaks 
through and by means of the body, is heard by others 
when it so declares itself ; is unheard when it does 
not, when there is no objective body such as meets 
our vision on all sides. 

The body being the visible to us and the soul the 
invisible, all that belongs to the soul is equally invisi- 
ble except as it expresses itself through the body. 

Then it is the expression we see, not that which is 
expressed : and that must continue on its own plane 
by its nature. 



296 A CniCAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

For those of us who can see this possibility, nay, 
the necessity because of the principle involved, a 
consequence at once arises. 

Seeing that the three score and ten is only the 
time in which we look out upon what now we call 
living, that that which looks out lives on, its con- 
sciousness, sensibility and experiences continuing, 
we see the importance of realizing now, and not 
waiting till the three score and ten years are con- 
cluded, that living is continuous. 

That we are not going into eternity, but are in it 
already. 

That we are not going to live after we die, but are 
not going to die. 

That we are now living right along from day to 
day into all the hereafter there is ; that hereafter 
which is only the continuance of the here ; that to- 
morrow which ever joins the to-day in unbroken 
sequence. 

When we see that this is all that life after death, 
as it has been called, is ; when we realize this truth, 
we begin to live in the eternal instead of in time. 

We cease to live in and for that three score years 
and ten, and live in and for eternity. 

We cease to measure all things by this life, this 
seventy years ; cease to regulate our acts, our desires 
and our aims according to its limitations, and adjust 
them instead to that eternal and unchangeable prin- 
ciple wliich begins to be dimly manifest to us. 

We cease to hold as not only unworthy, but false 
and misleading, the view " Let us eat and drink for 
to-morrow we die." 



LIVE IN THE ETEBNAL, NOT IN TIME. 297 

We cease looking forward to heaven as a place which 
we shall go to when we have put off the body and 
know instead that the only heaven is in us and to be 
found only by looking within instead of without and 
beyond ourselves ; to be dwelt in in the here, if we 
will have it so, instead of that hereafter which always 
remains the hereafter because it is always now with 
us. 

In just the proportion that we cease to be what 
Paul calls " carnally minded " and become instead 
" spiritually minded," we cease to live in time and 
live in the eternal ; and this change from time to 
eternity which is possible for us now is through a 
change in our sense of all things including ourselves ; 
is from seeing ourselves and all things according to 
their principle instead of according to their appear- 
ance. 

We are carnally minded when we take what the 
soul looks out upon for the real and the all, and when 
all our desires and acts are based upon this belief. 

We become spiritually minded when we see the 
falsity and deceptiveness of this view and recognize 
that what is looked out upon now is temporal and, 
valuable only according to the use made of it ; while 
the soul, outlasting what it in ignorance sees, must go 
on climbing higher and higher till it stands as con- 
queror of all the sense beliefs and desires. 

To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace, Paul says. : 

To believe that what we, by means of the body, 
look out upon, is what we are ; to have as our impelling 
motive the desire to get all the enjoyment and satis- 



298 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

faction on that plane that we can, as we go along, 
is to look upon death, which is really only a part of 
that which is looked out upon, as the inevitable end 
of it all and an enemy from whose grasp we must try 
to be saved by every possible stratagem. 

But to perceive and understand that the looker-on, 
who is self-deceived when this view prompts its action, 
continues, gaining new experience upon the plane 
where it is, where it has been all the while, no more 
invisible than it was before death, the only difference 
being that its expression is not seen, what it says and 
does and feels not known to the sense which sees 
body because no longer so expressed, is to become 
spiritually minded, when the why and wherefore of 
this is also perceived as the result of that law which 
brings the spiritual to manifestation as the all, when 
it is fulfilled. 

To be spiritually minded, to live in the eternal in- 
stead of in time, is life and peace. 

Can we not readily see that tliis change in the looker- 
on turns him from death to life ? Gives in place of 
the old sense of things which includes death as an 
inevitable sequence, a new sense of living, of that 
living which is not under the power of death and puts 
him at peace with all. 

No more wonderment over a mysterious hereafter, 
and whether we shall be happy or unhappy if not put 
an end to altogether ; but a serenity instead which 
none of the mortal dream fancies can overthrow. 

It is not easy for us to at once live consciously in 
the eternal instead of in time. The force of old 
habit is strong and the endeavors to establish new 



LIVE IN THE ETEBNAL, NOT IN TIME. 299 

ones are at first weak ; but as we persist, as we stead- 
fastly regulate our thoughts and acts according to 
what we now see and know must be true instead of 
according to what we, in common with others, have 
formerly believed, we bring the hereafter into the 
here, in that we have and experience now much that 
we had thought could only be ours then. 

We prove that now is the accepted time, that now 
is the day of salvation from the results of carnal 
mindedness, and that it is through spiritual minded- 
ness. 

We find that we are saved now from much that 
we had believed only death could free us from. 

We find that it is possible now to exchange joy for 
mourning, strength for weakness, health for sickness, 
courage for fear, and happiness for pain. 

We prove that tlie fruits of salvation are ours now ; 
that we do not have to wait till then, for them ; and 
because we are in eternity now as much as we ever 
shall be. 

So we pass from death unto life without dying 
according to the common view of death. 

So we are conscious of eternity, more conscious of 
it than of time ; and are content to take each day 
as it comes without looking with longing eyes for a 
hereafter, knowing that days pass by us one after 
another and that we are no part of them. 

Knowing that all we have to do is to act faithfully 
according to our growing spiritual sense, and so 
through this spiritual mindedness come nearer and 
nearer to that consciousness which is our inheritance, 
which includes no sense of what we have formerly 



300 ^ CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

turned from, but which is too pure to even behold 
it. 

Paul says again, " Ye are not in the flesh, but in the 
Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you." 

What is ordinarily termed " this life " is what is 
also called " living in the flesh " ; and we say, " How 
can I help thinking and doing so and so as long as I 
am in the flesh? " And believing that the actor, the 
thinker and doer of the deed is in the flesh or body 
as an integral part of it, we have believed that we 
could not help much that we have been subject to 
through this very belief. 

Paul is here addressing the living as we call them, 
those who have not yet died and so gotten rid of the 
flesh or body ; and lie says, " Ye are not in the flesh 
if the Spirit is dwelling in you." 

Wlien what we have called the soul, which looks 
out upon the objective world by means of that attach- 
ment which is the fleshly body, believes that body 
to be itself, then it is in the flesh to its own sense of 
itself. 

But when instead of this sense it is prompted by 
the spiritual perception and understanding of its own 
nature and the nature of that which it looks out 
upon, in all it thinks and does, it does not live to the 
flesli, but after the Spirit ; and so has passed from 
death unto life. 

Those who " are in the flesh cannot please God." 
Those who are living to and for the flesh, the body, 
through that sense of it, cannot think and act in 
accordance with the truth of their being, so making 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 301 

that truth manifest ; cannot make what Man is, mani- 
fest in the world. 

They live, inevitably, contrary to that truth and 
serve the bod}^ instead of the soul ; live for corrup- 
tion instead of incorruption. 

When we declare that we will no longer serve our 
natural sense of things, the sense which takes ap- 
pearance for reality, no longer be bound under that 
servitude, but will live for and to the truth which 
that sense cannot see but which we can feel, we begin 
to live in the eternal and time begins to disappear 
for us. 

When we begin to cease living to and for the flesh, 
then we begin to live to and for the Spirit, and that 
period can just as well be for us to-day as after we 
have died ; for this is the death inevitable for all 
mankind ; is the turning point in its experience 
whereby it passes from death unto life. 

When we repudiate the beliefs of our fellow-men 
as laws binding upon us under which we must serve 
whether we will or no, we begin to live instead of die. 

Bound by these, yoke-fellows with them, we are 
dying all the time. Freed from tliese through our 
throwing off, and holding instead to that great 
eternal principle which changes not, making it our 
rule of living, we live more and more every da}', 
grow more and more living till we outgrow all bonds 
and stand as masters over them. 

There is a help and a strength from the perception 
and the conviction that we are in eternity now in- 
stead of in the temporal only, which only those know 
who have and hold these. 



302 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

Such give a very different kind of thought to the 
to-day, and recognize the necessity of right use of 
this, as the only preparation for the hereafter. 

They recognize that each one determines the nature 
and quality of his individual hereafter by what the 
to-day is to him ; and seeing this with understand- 
ing, they purposely and consciously die daily to their 
old sense of it and of all, so passing into eternity 
even while in what others call, here. 

When we can see that to live in the eternal instead 
of in time, for the everlasting instead of for the 
temporal, is a result which must come for every one 
of us sooner or later ; that we do not necessarily 
have to experience what is ordinarily understood by 
" death " in order to gain it ; that to-day it is as 
possible for us as after we are no longer seen by 
mortal sense ; that this change is all the death there 
is and that through it we overcome and conquer the 
old sense of death, we shall live to the Spirit and not 
to the flesh in the to-day ; and so living, we shall 
reap its fruits, fruits which prove the tree they grow 
upon, good. 

When this change comes to us, when we are 
established in it, whether it be in what others call 
the here or the hereafter, we put forth our hand and 
take from the tree of life and live forever. 

When this comes to us or is attained by us, in the 
now and here, we know what it is to be in the world 
but not of it ; for all our endeavor is to live after the 
Spirit and not after the flesh. 

Knowing that this is what must be accomplished 
sometime, why not make the effort now ? 



LIVE IN THE ETERNAL, NOT IN TIME. 303 

Knowing that our sense of time must *be displaced 
by the sense of the eternal, why not begin to cultivate 
it now ? 

The tree of knowledge of good and evil is for 
time ; the tree of life is for eternity. 

We have all fed of the fruit of the former ; sooner 
or later we must know how to choose the good and 
refuse the evil ; and then, putting forth our hand to 
take of the tree of life, we find that its leaves are for 
the healing of the nations ; that its fruit so satisfied 
that there is no more hunger for aught else ; that as 
we feed upon it we grow more and more into that 
God-likeness which alone satisfies ; above which can 
be no higher ideal to reach forward to, for it is the 
All. 

So, then, tlie righteousness of the law is fulfilled 
in us ; the rightness of that law by which we have 
grown out of sense-consciousness into soul-conscious- 
ness, and whose fulfillment brings that Christ to the 
world which has dominion over it and all belonging 
to it ; dominion over all sickness and pain, over all 
sin and death, over all erroneous self-sense, over body 
and its correspondences, and manifests the divinity 
and the power which can put and keep these under 
foot. 

If we live in the eternal instead of in time through 
this change in our sense about time and eternity, 
what we are to others and what they are to us is 
determined upon a new and a higher basis. 

All things change for us through this one change. 
Then we do not fear that dear ones will be taken 
from us by death, for they cannot be taken out of 



304 A CHICAGO BIBLE CLASS. 

that eternity in which they now are, equally with 
ourselves ; and they are to have the righteousness of 
the law fulfilled in them as are we. 

Nothing that is ours can be taken from us. We 
can suffer no loss, for in the eternal all that belongs 
to it is sure. 

It is only that which belongs to time, to the tem- 
poral, that has its day and is no more. 

Then, having done all, stand. No one of us is 
required to do, to feel, to be more to-day than he is 
capable of ; but all that we are capable of is required 
of us to the utmost. 

The unceasing effort to live in the eternal instead 
of in time will increase our capability to clioose the 
good and refuse the evil ; increase our opportunity 
and ability to pluck and eat from the tree of life ; 
and nourished with this food we grow little by little 
to fulfill all righteousness or rightness. 

First a little, then more, and more and more till 
all is overcome ; and we see that the law under which 
this has been done has been but the schoolmaster 
which has brought us to Christ ; brought us to and 
into till we are Christ's. 

Many of us can see these truths, but most of us 
do not find it easy to stand. We even find it easier 
to do that which is hard than to stand after we have 
done all that we are capable of. 

Yet to stand in the eternal, strong and steadfast, 
is the essential step before we can have what eternity 
contains revealed to us ; have it become our conscious 
present. 

Many of us can see heights in consciousness to-day 



LIVE IN THE ETEHNAL, NOT IN TIME. 305 

which a few years ago did not exist for us because 
we were blind to them ; and as we make a little 
advance up these heights, it is only to see still higher 
beyond. 

Yet, having done all, stand. Let us not be dis- 
mayed by what we see by means of the flesh. Back 
of that is the unchanging, and if we are steadfast and 
unwavering it will become our own. 

" Stand fast in the eternal ways, and what is yours 
will come to you." 

We are not debtors to the flesh to live after the 
flesh ; through that Spirit that quickens we are debt- 
ors to that which is God to live as the Sons of God. 

This Spirit helps our infirmities when we stand 
with and by it, depending no more on the arm of 
flesh, but on that which alone delivers. 

This Spirit, the deliverer within, can alone lead us 
along those eternal ways where what is ours is found. 

The Spirit of truth leads us into all truth when we 
are able to stand firmly by and for it, unswayed by 
all that seems to oppose. 

Not till we are able to so stand can we comprehend 
and feel the conviction of Paul's as our own also ; 
for not till then are we too persuaded ''that neither 
death, nor life, nor angel, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 




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UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, N. Y. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 TlTomson Park Dnvt- 



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